The following article by Tony Leen is from today's Irish Examiner Sport

Dara Moynihan: 'I know I have a lot more in me, but I’ve got to prove that’

Moynihan, a Kerry minor under Peter Keane and an U20 with Jack O’Connor, chastises himself on occasions for obsessing too much about Kerry football

FRI, 06 MAY, 2022 - 19:00

TONY LEEN

DONAL Hickey, the erstwhile Irish Examiner staff writer in Killarney, who literally wrote the book on East Kerry football, is pondering the last time Spa had two players in contention to start the championship with Kerry.

Hickey, of proud Gneeveguilla stock, but long settled in Tiernaboul in Spa parish above Killarney, consulted with the elders of a club now cutting a dash in Division 1 in the Kingdom before confirming the need to date back to the late 1960's and early '70's for such an occasion – or as he puts it, “to find two Spa players regularly commanding places on the Kerry team at the same time.” 

Then it was Donie O'Sullivan and Mick Gleeson, who both won All-Ireland medals in 1969 and '70. Now it is Dan O’Donoghue and Dara Moynihan, though a nasty shin fracture to the defender rules out any chance of a Spa tandem at Páirc Ui Rinn this evening. He will, however, be back in contention shortly.

Despite Moynihan’s own eye-catching return from injury this season, he was not included in the matchday 26 named for Saturday’s clash — whether he picked up an injury is unclear.

But with a taste of it, Moynihan, and O’Donoghue, want more.

Moynihan, a Kerry minor under Peter Keane and an U20 with Jack O’Connor, chastises himself on occasions for obsessing too much about Kerry football. He has only ever wanted to wear those colours, even before he saw his first All-Ireland at five against Mayo in 2004. Declan O’Sullivan was “unreal,” he recalls. Paul Galvin lived outside the law in his eyes and Moynihan adored him for it. “He was pure tenacity,” Moynihan says of the Finuge man he’s still to meet.

But to unplug? To cool the jets and stop thinking of Kerry football?

“We’ve a dairy farm at home and I haven’t time for the likes of golf. With work five days a week in the Credit Union, you mightn’t have a mind for milking cows, but I really enjoy sitting on the tractor spreading fertiliser, where you can throw on the radio or your earphones and listen to a podcast.” 

Even if, invariably, it is The High Performance podcast.

The Moynihan family holding is close to the Spa pitch in a much sought-after area within easy striking distance of Killarney. It’s a similar story outside Tralee, in the sprawling parish of Ballymacelligott and no coincidence that both clubs exist comfortably in the thin air of Kerry’s League Division One. Where the migration to the populated centre has been injurious, and indeed fatal, to some clubs in the Iveragh peninsula of South Kerry, it has been a boon to those close to the big population centres of Killarney and Tralee. Spa are one of only eight senior clubs in Kerry now.

For all that, Moynihan sees the work the likes of Conor Gleeson et al put into the under-age section of the club, and the work that went into their rapidly-approaching Sevens tournament on the June Bank Holiday weekend (see panel).

“We have a very young core in the team. There was a time we’d have been in awe of the Crokes, but we are starting to catch them now. We were banging around intermediate for a few years and lost back-to-back finals in 2014 and 2015 before we won the 2020 final, beating Beaufort.” 

Though Spa don’t often see their green and gold stars, there’s great glee in their progress. Donal Hickey, who co-authored ‘The Clear Air Boys’, a history of the GAA in East Kerry, reckons that the last semi-regular from the club for Kerry was Michael McAuliffe, a three-year Kerry minor, who had a run with the senior set-up just as the wheels were coming off Dwyer’s golden crop. Mention of same, one can’t forget Dwyer’s No 1 at the start of that glorious era, Spa’s own Paudie O’Mahony.

Considering the decades in the interim, it’s easy to understand the excitement in Spa at their Kingdom cubs, and the disappointment when the pair are laid up with injury and not in contention.

Moynihan (23) had a productive Allianz league after an extended lay-off due to a stress fracture of the foot. The enforced distance between his rehab and the Kerry bubble was difficult to process for him too.

“Injury is a tough place to go,” he sighs. “It’s dark, you are on your own, away from the team, they are all laughing, smiling and looking forward to getting out on the pitch and you’re stuck in there, rehabbing. It’s just not a nice place, so that makes you more grateful for the game time you do see. Coming back, I know I have a lot more in me, but I’ve got to prove that. Making an impression on the scoreboard is where I need to do more. If a wing-back knows you are not much of a scoring threat, they can drop off and cover the bigger threats inside. If I am scoring, it keeps them honest and ensures the boys inside, David and Paul, are one on one.” 

It was silverware and smiles for much of Moynihan’s under age. He won a pair of All-Ireland Colleges SFC titles (Hogan Cup) with St Brendan’s in 2016 and 2017, and an All-Ireland minor as a jet-heeled wing forward in 2016 against Galway. The other members of the half-forward line were Sean O’Shea and Diarmuid O’Connor.

The senior journey hasn’t been so smooth, Moynihan recalling the 2020 defeat to Saturday’s opponents and last year’s All-Ireland semi-final loss to Tyrone with the same “sick feeling.

“You feel like you’ve let everyone in the county down, it’s not a nice place to be,” he says. “That day in Cork was just…eerie. Lashing rain, at the start of second half, you couldn’t even see around the pitch. We were dropping balls short, everything going wrong.

“After those games, you’d be very bad, you don’t want to see or talk to anyone. Even the family. After Tyrone last year, I actually felt embarrassed seeing people in town, because you’d think they’d be looking at you quare, that you lost it for us. You’d prefer to go off on holidays straight away until the thing blew over.” 

Does it ever get too much, the Kerry thing? “We won the league, and you enjoy that, but the exit last year would still be in the back of your head. I’m 23, and there’s expectation every year but you have to block that out and stick with the here and now." Like Cork this weekend. 

It’s never a question of one manager over another but under Jack O’Connor, Kerry “really focus on the kick pass”, Moynihan remarks. “He wants the ball moved through the foot. (Coach) Paddy Tally has brought a welcome outside perspective too that Kerry needed. He doesn’t give a sh*t about history or tradition, he is there to win an All-Ireland.” 

The clear air boys would quietly approve.