10-07-2025
Kerry rookies have held their own, but can they keep pace?
180. The total number of championship appearances among the 11 bodies that populated the Kerry bench against Armagh.
A number is no use in isolation. How does it compare? Not great, actually.
Their quarter-final Orchard opponents had a back-up cast with a combined figure of 257 championship appearances. Galway, in the curtain-raiser, had 300 championship appearances sitting in the Hogan Stand.
Yes, yes, we can hear you say that Armagh, Galway, and their respective benches overflowing with household names such as the reigning All-Ireland winning captain, the reigning footballer of the year, a previous footballer of the year nominee, and six All-Star winners are no longer part of the championship conversation.
Still, one would think it gives greater comfort to a manager and starting players to know such artillery can be rolled in when required.
Paudie Clifford and Micheál Burns aside, Kerry's quarter-final bench was artillery-light.
Within that bench, Darragh Lyne and Tom Leo O'Sullivan have not a single minute of championship game-time between them. Two more, Evan Looney, and Tomás Kennedy, had just one championship appearance to their respective names prior to throw-in.
For both, that off-the-bench debut was as fresh as the Cavan preliminary quarter-final non-event a fortnight previous. Prior to their introduction against Armagh, the pair's combined total of championship minutes was 20.
Add in Armin Heinrich's two championship involvements and what you had a fortnight ago was half the Kerry subs list boasting the scarcely believable pocket-sized total of four championship appearances, and none of them a start.
Everyone knows the Kerry injury-list at this stage. Their fallen frontliners are Diarmuid O'Connor, Barry Dan O'Sullivan, and Tom O'Sullivan.
Mike Breen, Tadhg Morley, and Tony Brosnan are all back in training, but having not been part of the matchday 26 for the dethroning of the champions, one wonders how much ground has been made up in the subsequent fortnight to deliver impactful involvement for the latest Ulster inspection. Ditto Paul Geaney, an unused sub against Armagh.
Jack O'Connor's confirmation on Monday that Tom O'Sullivan (calf) will play no part against Tyrone means Evan Looney's third championship appearance and first start could be in the searingly hot kitchen of an All-Ireland semi-final.
The 23-year-old's lengthy quarter-final cameo, in the wake of Sullivan's 24th minute departure, was quietly effective and without significant blemish. The free he won in the 29th minute ended in a Seán O'Shea two-pointer.
'It has been a very tricky season. Not alone have we had to deal with a lot of injuries, but we've had to deal with trying to get players back from the clubs and incorporate them into the system. The Crokes players came back late, you have to give them time off.
'We've managed to incorporate them in, and just as well that we had as many players as we had, because a lot of them have been used, and we've needed those panel players,' Jack said on Monday.
'There are players who thought they've been on the periphery; they are now pushed into action, and we're delighted with the way they're reacting.'
Looney is part of that group.
His Crokes clubmate Mark O'Shea is at the centre of that group. Also in his debut season with the Kingdom, he and Seán O'Brien began the year fourth and fifth in the Kerry midfield pecking order.
If you wanted to factor in those recently departed to and recently returned from Australia, they'd be down around sixth and seventh.
Again, their callowness is captured in the numbers. O'Shea made his championship debut as recently as May's Munster final. His first championship start was the defeat to Meath.
O'Brien's first championship start was last year's Munster semi-final. He didn't start again in championship until the aforementioned preliminary quarter-final win over Cavan.
There was nothing callow about their quarter-final contributions. O'Shea broke a third-minute Ethan Rafferty restart to Dylan Casey. The play concluded with Seán O'Shea's first orange flag.
Neither O'Shea nor O'Brien allowed Armagh No.14 Andrew Murnin, who comes to midfield at kick-out time, a whiff of influence.
Indeed, it was O'Shea exerting considerable influence at the beginning of the 11 Armagh kickouts where Kerry dismembered the opposition.
O'Shea was central to Kerry spoiling three of the first four in that sequence, leading to a Paudie point, David two-pointer, and Seánie free. The midfield pairing later combined, following a sumptuous O'Brien sidestep of Ross McQuillan, to assist a David Clifford white flag.
'The league was good to us in that we used something like 35 players. Mark O'Shea played about 10 minutes, for example, up in Castlebar. That was the first action that he got, and then he got bits and pieces as we went along,' Jack noted earlier this week.
Kerry's forced hand and quick promotion of these rookies has so far been without a detrimental hiccup on the results front. But as their swift education gets steeper and the injury list stubbornly persists, how long will that hold?
