How Kerry became believers in the word of Paddy Tally

BIG IMPACT: Kerry coach Paddy Tally lifts the Sam Maguire Cup after the win over Galway in the 2022 final. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile Yards away from where Bono announced 33 years earlier that

BIG IMPACT: Kerry coach Paddy Tally lifts the Sam Maguire Cup after the win over Galway in the 2022 final. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Yards away from where Bono announced 33 years earlier that U2 had to “dream it all up again”, Jack O’Connor and Paddy Tally sat down for a coffee the Monday morning after last year’s All-Ireland final.

There outside the 3Arena venue located beside the team’s Gibson Hotel, they debriefed on a job well done and plotted once more. On a year’s sabbatical from St Mary’s College in Belfast, there had been doubts Tally could stretch his coaching agreement with Kerry into a second season but they made it work.

As far as O’Connor could see it, he simply had to. They conceded an average 12.8 points per game in 2022 and never more than 16 points, in contrast to 15 points per game in 2021, ’20 and 18.25 in ‘19. Tally was essential in Kerry completing their meanest championship season since 2009.

Yet only nine months earlier, Tally was he-who-must-not-be-named in Kerry football circles. A shadowy Rasputin-like figure who had been touted as part of O’Connor’s proposed management team but not confirmed possibly in fear it might jeopardise the Dromid Pearses man’s chances of a third tilt at the position.

On a testy night, the county board executive were proven right in recommending O’Connor to succeed Peter Keane. Dr Crokes delegate Fergus Moroney spoke for plenty in the county when he said: “I've no gripe with Jack O'Connor or anyone else. The only one question I'd like to ask you is: Was there anything about a fitness coach and backs coaching in his team that would be coming in?

“As you know, there are thoughts about certain people around who have proven to be very negative in defensive tactics etc, which would be far from the Kerry way of playing football. Wouldn't be appreciated by Kerry supporters either.”

Moroney’s remarks harked back to former county chairman Seán Walsh’s address to annual convention at the end of 2004 after Kerry claimed the All-Ireland the year after Tyrone steamrolled them. "Twelve months ago pundits were proclaiming the death of football as we knew it. We are delighted that it took a Kerry team to restore the pride in Gaelic football.”

Metric tonnes of water have passed under the bridge since that first All-Ireland of O’Connor’s. Speaking to this newspaper’s podcast weeks before the keys to the Kingdom were returned to him, he spoke of the defensive frailties in that past weekend’s All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Tyrone.

“Kerry tried to press in the middle third of the pitch but as soon as Tyrone broke that press there were acres there and Kerry didn’t have a dedicated sweeper to give a bit of protection in front of the full-back line.”

Tadhg Morley performing that role was already in O’Connor’s head but to execute it, to devise the defensive web, Tally was his man. “We are very lucky to have him on board because he is a very intelligent, organised guy who will bring something to Kerry that we haven’t got,” O’Connor said in his first press conference.

With a strength and conditioning coach in Jason McGahan and an analyst head in Colin Trainor both hailing from Tullysaran in Armagh already in place, it wasn’t as if drawing from Ulster was anything new for Kerry. However, O’Connor had to tiptoe around Tally’s involvement. “I’m hardly going to change at this hour of my life and go all defensive,” he said days following his appointment.

Five months later and his contribution was being lauded by players as they won a Division 1 title coughing up just two goals, one from play. Speaking after beating Monaghan in Inniskeen in late February when Conor McManus converted a goal from a penalty, Tom O’Sullivan said: “I think that was our first goal in the league that we conceded. I think it’s seven games including the McGrath Cup that we went without conceding one, so it was a bit disappointing to concede a penalty. Paddy is doing a great job with us and we’re happy enough with where we’re at.”

By season’s end, only Darren McCurry and Cormac Costello had scored goals from play against Kerry. This year, they’ve kept nine clean sheets in 14 games, five from seven in the championship and their average concession per SFC match is 14 points.

To pigeon-hole Tally as simply a defensive coach doesn’t reflect his influence on Kerry’s transitional play, what they do when they turn over ball. But against his native Tyrone last month, the hallmarks of his expertise were there for all his fellow countymen to see.

“Paddy’s about everybody knowing their responsibilities when they do and don’t have the ball, where the players fit into the bigger path,” says former Tyrone defender Noel McGinn. “Kerry this year against Tyrone, there was such improvement in how they tackled and broke with pace. A lot of talk is about (David Clifford) but the way those defenders and midfielders worked, I’ve not seen that from Kerry in a long, long time.”

In Tyrone, it’s been joked Tally’s switch to Kerry is worse than Mo Johnston’s to Rangers in 1989 having been at Celtic two years previously. Asked about why he accepted O’Connor’s offer, the Galbally man has spoken about the opportunity to work with some of the game’s best players in a county where football is a religion.

Tally has no pulpit in Kerry – he wouldn’t want one either – but his good word is spreading.

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How Kerry became believers in the word of Paddy Tally