It’s stick or twist for Kerry.
Stick to the attacking guns that have served them so well or twist to the defensive style that so many are advising them towards.
Saturday night in Páirc Uà Chaoimh and Kerry were wide open. Cork, led by the gallant Ruairi Deane ran through the Kingdom backline at will and weren’t far off causing the shock of the championship because of it.
But speaking on this Monday’s GAA Hour Show, the lads are adamant that these defensive issues must be solved without eating into their attacking game-plan.
They must be solved with a higher work-rate, a more physical tackling style and some better defensive decisions.
Colm Parkinson gave his opinion on the Kerry situation.
“They shouldn’t go defensive, they have defensive weaknesses, there’s no doubt about that. They’re physically not big enough, they don’t have the man-markers. Jason Foley hasn’t turned into a man-marker at all, he’s more of a footballer. Their whole half back line are more footballers than man-markers. They’ve only got Tadhg Morley who’s got really good defensive man-marking qualities that I would see,” said Wooly.
“If they’re talking about Peter Crowley as being a man-marker, which he’s really not, then you know they’ve got problems…
As the saying goes though, there’s no point in robbing Peter to pay Paul.
“But if Kerry go defensively, they won’t get the most out of Clifford, Geaney, O’Brien and all of these fellas. Regardless of if you want to criticise this, Kerry are just going to go ‘this is a philosophy, yes our defence isn’t good, it’s not good – in fairness we all know it’s not good, there should never been a goal from that throw ball and Ruairi Deane was waltzing through them, their defence is terrible but – if they bring forwards back which they don’t want to do because their forwards are too good, Kerry have to have the mindset that, ‘yes you’re going to score against us but we’re going to score more against you…”
“It’s not going to do them any good to take away from the strongest side of our play, in the full forward line say, to help with the weaker part in the full back line.”
“Anyway, their half forward line is a working half forward line, O’Connor should be working and so should their two midfielders. Sean O’Shea and Moynihan drop back…A lot of the time, it’s just Clifford and Geaney inside. Most of the time Kerry are just happy to go with three up front – 1 on the 45, two inside and the others supposed to be working hard and defending…”
It’s the working and the defensive decision making that they need to solve.
You can listen to the Kerry chat, and much more from Monday’s GAA Hour Show right here.
