No question what the result of the first weekend in the hurling league was. All due nods and hat-tips to Waterford but Kilkenny were losing their league opener for the third time in four seasons so what happened in Walsh Park doesn’t necessarily thieve the stars from the sky.
No, it was Kerry’s 1-24 to 2-14 victory over Laois in O’Moore Park that sung loudest, their first game in Division One since 1999 putting them in with a genuine shout of extending their stay in the higher stream of league hurling beyond this season.
As hurling officer for the Kerry county board, Ger McCarthy was, of course, in Portlaoise. Wouldn't have been anywhere else. A Kerry hurling lifer, he had around half of the current panel under him during his four-year spell as minor manager in the late 2000s. Though the result made the rest of the country prick its ears, McCarthy saw it coming. Or he hoped he did, at any rate.
“We did target Laois, there’s no doubt about that. And furthermore, the other thing to take into consideration is that it was 29 years since we last beat Laois. We played them in Division 2B in 2013 and lost by eight points and we thought it was a great result.
“I wasn’t surprised at the performance from our lads because they have a lot of fitness work done since last October. We have a very powerful, united bunch – there’s 28 to 32 boys training every night. They set the tone at an early stage in the game and I don’t think Laois were able to live with our intensity. The ball work was good and the decision-making on the pitch was good as well, which was vital.”
The hurling pocket of north Kerry is notoriously small. Of the 30-man panel, there is a small knuckle of blow-ins – one a Corkman living in Killarney, another the Clareman Pa Kelly – but otherwise everyone grew up within a four-mile radius of each other. They train in Tralee some of the time but so bad has the weather been over the winter that they spent much of it travelling to the University of Limerick. Yet the carrot of Division One has meant attendances have held up.
“We were waiting for this game since we beat Antrim last April,” says McCarthy. “Even the Christy Ring, while it was great to win it last year, getting into Division 1B was the big thing. When they regrouped after the team holiday, the focus on the start of the league was huge.
‘Transition’
“Laois are probably in a bit of transition at the minute but then again, they are picking from a way bigger base than we are. They have strong colleges hurling up around them and they have young lads going to play in good hurling schools and developing that way. But even so, we targeted that game and we knew there was a big possibility of a performance because the lads are very fit and have a lot of conditioning work done.”
Limerick come down to Fitzgerald Stadium on Sunday. The Laois win should at least add a few hundred to the gate, even if nobody expects miracles. But they’ve made a start and at least ensured that they’ll be there at the finish.
