2009 revisited as Jack O'Connor lays into Kerry critics
Kerry manager Jack O'Connor lashed out at critics inside and outside the county after his team delivered the finest performance of his third stint in taking out the All-Ireland champions at the quarter-final stage.
O'Connor's side had entered the quarter-final as underdogs after an uneven campaign, which was shunted off-course after a shock nine-point loss to Meath in the final round of the group stage in Tullamore.
Following that defeat, there had been an outbreak of doom-laden commentary, most notably from six-time All-Ireland winner Darragh Ó Sé in the Irish Times, who said there was an air of inevitability about Kerry exiting to Armagh at the quarter-final stage.
The mood was unaltered by Kerry's nine-point win over Cavan last weekend and the Munster champions entered today's game as clear underdogs.
But a devastating second half scoring burst of 14 unanswered points saw Kerry "flip the script", in O'Connor's words.
While it had some echoes of the 2006 quarter-final win over the same opposition, when a snarling Kieran Donaghy had set them on their way, it was the demolition job against Pat Gilroy's Dublin three years later that came more readily to O'Connor's mind.
"I thought it was a bit more like 2009, to be honest," O'Connor said, after being asked about the '06 quarter-final.
"I don't think too many people outside the camp saw that performance there. But we were very, very determined.
"There was ferocious determination in the camp that we weren't going to let the season fizzle out after the Meath game.
"It may have been difficult for Armagh not to listen to the outside noise where we were being written off and they were being written up.
"It's a big performance and a big Kerry support came up and backed the team, which is great. We love seeing that because a lot of people had us written off during the week.
"But obviously the supporters felt there was another kick in the team.
"They've seen it happen before. They saw it happen in 2006, they saw it happen in 2009.
"Kerry is a proud county and we weren't going to fizzle out of the championship without a hell of a fight. We saw that fight out there today."
O'Connor bluntly admitted that Kerry had been motivated by critical moments in the lead-up, citing a Sunday Independent article in which they were described as a one-man team, as well as negative commentary from within Kerry.
"One of the great motivators in life is trying to prove people wrong. We were being portrayed as a one-man team.
"I saw somebody writing this morning that said the only Kerry player worthy of being called a Kerry player was David Clifford.
"Now, David is a great player but David will tell you that there was a fair supporting cast there today.
"We think we have a lot of good footballers but I think sometimes we're being judged on different criteria to other teams.
"For example, Dublin got beaten by Meath in the Leinster Championship and I didn't see any ex-Dublin players coming out slating the team or slating the management like we had down south in our county.
"There's a sense of commitment to the team and a sense of loyalty to the team.
"Unfortunately a few pundits down our way let themselves down in that regard.
"I'm not giving out about it from my own point of view.
"What's to be gained by slating people? It's the easiest thing in the world. I'm in the business of building people up. I'm not in the business of knocking people.
"I spent all my life coaching underage school kids, minors, Under-21s, seniors, at every level.
"I'd ask people who are knocking that group and knocking people involved with the group to look in the mirror and say, 'What have you contributed?
"What have you contributed to Kerry football off the field?'
"Go away and coach a team. Go away and coach a development squad. Go away and coach a minor team. That's how you help Kerry football, not knocking people."
O'Connor was on the sideline in 2009, when Kerry appeared in disarray for much of the year, losing badly to Cork in Munster before labouring to deeply unconvincing qualifier victories over Longford, Sligo and Antrim - the middle of those being especially perilous.
Ahead of this week, the four-time All-Ireland winning managers invoked those experiences with the players.
"Look, when everybody even down in our own county was throwing in the towel with us, I said in the dressing room after the Cavan game, 'Lads, I've been here before where we've been completely written off.'
"And a Kerry team written off in Croke Park are dangerous because it just takes a bit of the heat off. It allows them to play with a kind of freedom and abandon. That's what you saw there today. Maybe it was very tough for Armagh."
Regarding the display, O'Connor said he could sense there was a big performance coming and questioned the narrative that Kerry hadn't been tested in the lead-up to the quarter-final, citing the Munster semi-final against Cork.
"We were fairly sure that the performance above in Tullamore was not us," said O'Connor.
"We were missing some key players that day and things just went awry on us and the game slipped away. Plus, Meath are a good team. They showed that out there today.
"But we were fairly sure that wasn't the real Kerry.
"We felt we were going to give a really big performance. We had no idea where that would take us.
"You see the teams up in Ulster and they're knocking lumps out of each other and playing very high-calibre games.
"People dismissed our games against Cork in the Munster Championship and in the round-robin series.
"We thought Cork against Kerry in Páirc Uí Chaoimh are a right good team. They toughened us up, they hardened us and we lost a few players up there.
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