THERE’S a moment in ‘Moneyball’ when Billy Beane is about to fire his Oakland Athletics’ head of scouting, Grady Fuson. Brad Pitt, playing Beane, extends his arms with that ‘whaddya-want-me-to-do’ shrug as he winds up to explain his sabermetrics model. ‘Adapt or Die’, he says.
The third trimester of Jack O’Connor as Kerry manager has developed that tic and worldly sigh. Less bark and bite. Less piss and vinegar.
More reasoned. More expansive. Most of the time anyway.
When conversations veer into the realm of style, the state of the game and Kerry’s place in the grand scheme, it’s nothing that he hasn’t tossed around and teased out. There’s a reason he’s painted as a pragmatist first but that shouldn’t gainsay his poetic meanderings when he wanders up Toorsaleen. “I’m an optimist by nature,” he insists.
Which will stand him well in Kerry. The Kingdom are the only one of last year’s four football semi-finalists still standing, and their championship record this year is unblemished. That hasn’t brought him or his players much local credit this summer and it might be like Southgate’s England – only when they emerged from the weeds are folk beginning to see the wood for the trees.
There might be a bloody final to be won here. O’Connor and Kerry aren’t there yet, and the carping at home is not without merit either. Elsewhere in Saturday’s Irish Examiner , former manager Éamonn Fitzmaurice addresses the issue of tempo and depth, bo.
