Issue of dual players resolved
Already they have made their own bit of history by winning first division status in the Allianz National League for next season. And, there's the promise of even further glory, maybe even the possibility of new President Sean Kelly presenting a trophy to a team managed by one Kerryman, Liam Kerins and including his own brother Brian among the selectors.
Firstly, there is the important matter of taking on Wexford in the Division Two semi-final, a game which football boss Kerins admits will be a severe test for his team. Wexford, too, have made it to the premier grouping, after several disappointments in recent times. Tommy Carr was brought in as 'advisor' last season and a member of his former Dublin management, Don Twomey, has since taken over the management of the team.
"Winning promotion was the aim all along; anything after this is a bonus,'' says Kerins, a Tralee-based Garda. "I think we're ready to make the step up and see what we are capable of. We've developed a panel, the lads have matured and the team as a whole has matured to the stage where it's time to find out whether we are good enough to mix it with them.''
He accepts that it won't be easy, recognising that Westmeath found it very hard after they had won the Division Two title against Cork two years ago. "They got an awful lot of injuries at the time and they lost games by one and two points. Survival up there is what you'd be looking at. Every game will be tough and we'd have to be at our best to survive.''
New hurling manager David Keane adopted a different approach to Eamonn Cregan in regard to the issue of dual players, even though it's hard to argue against Cregan's view that a player is better off concentrating on just the one game. Kerins is therefore glad to have the services of Brian Begley, Conor Fitzgerald and Stephen Lucey (plagued by injury recently). "If we are to progress, you need all your best players and the three of them are very important to us,'' he adds. Begley didn't play football for two seasons, but he is said to be improving all the time.
Their campaign was highlighted by wins in all but one of their seven outings, against Westmeath in Mullingar. Interestingly, Kerins feels that they were unlucky to lose that game, but 'lucky' to beat Louth in Ardee. "On the other hand, we learned a lot from the Westmeath game and we made it work for us afterwards.We had a good second-half against Louth. It was probably our best performance over the course of the League.
"We had a good win over Wicklow in the last round. They have had a fair few problems and we were going well on the day. We needed to get a big scoreline (they finished with 3-17). We had more to play for.''
He readily acknowledges that Wexford represent formidable opposition. "They have the same profile as us and they just missed out on promotion last year. They ran Tyrone close in the League and Dublin in the championship. They have strung together some impressive results.''
Meanwhile, things have settled down a bit on the hurling front, with the victory over Waterford last Sunday in Kilmallock boosting morale after a somewhat traumatic opening series for the new management and players. However, team captain Mark Foley agrees that it's 'too early' to say if they have turned the corner. "We don't know yet. Even though it was a good win, it was very difficult to read anything into it,'' he says. "Waterford were missing a few players and, apart from that, conditions were poor. We might learn more from our game with Laois because they will have a full strength side and will be trying very hard to win.''
Accepting that it wasn't a good result from Waterford's perspective, he argues that it was more important for Limerick to win, for obvious reasons. "We have been making a few changes in every game for the last couple of rounds. At this stage it's important to try and get a settled team together, as close to the likely championship team as possible. I presume Waterford would know a lot more about their team.
"As well as that, with the bad run we were having it was important to win a few games to gain a bit of confidence. There was more of a 'spine' to the team down the middle. We were probably more settled on Sunday than we had been for a long time!''
*The hurling game against Laois is timed for 1.45, with the League semi-final timed for 3.30.
