By John Harrington

Kerry has always produced very talented hurlers, but it wasn't always easy to unify them under the one banner.

The county’s eight senior clubs are all from the same small pocket of North Kerry, and co-existing together cheek by jowl produced a really tribal rivalry. Leaving their mutual enmity at the dressing-room door when the players from the rival clubs came together for inter-county duty was often a challenge.

Current team captain Daniel Collins believes one of the reasons the Kingdom hurlers are on the up and up now is because the latest generation of players have forged a common-bond despite their splintered club loyalties.

“I think maybe we discussed that with our psychologist in the last couple of years especially,” admits Collins. “It used to get in the way maybe and affect Kerry hurling because fellas used hate this fella or that because he played for the club next door and they wouldn't pass the ball to him and all of this sort of carry-on.

“That's completely shut down now. The club stuff doesn't matter anymore when you're in with Kerry. Everyone gets on with everyone. And when we go back to the clubs we take each other's heads off, but that's exactly how you want it and that's how fellas like it.

“Those eight clubs, they're all only four or five miles apart, and we'd end up playing each other five or six times a year. It's just crazy, even if the rivalry isn't as bad as it once was. Before fellas used to hold grudges off the field, but now that's gone. The rivalry is there on the pitch and it's hard and it's tough, but as soon as we go off the pitch every fella more or less does get on.”

It helps that most of them have all grown up winning together for both school and county and the experience forged friendships as well as a winning mentality. Collins himself is typical of his generation in so far as he has won a couple of All-Ireland Vocational Schools titles with Coláiste na Sceilge and All-Ireland minor and U-21 'B' titles with Kerry. He and the players he has come up through the ranks with – which constitutes the bulk of this Kerry panel – became so used to winning at underage level that they saw no reason why they should not do the same in the senior grade.

“I suppose every year I've been with Kerry I've nearly won something,” says Collins “Between the Christy Ring last year and the National League two years in a row. And the year before we were in a Christy Ring Final. I suppose we've been breeding success. I know it was a Division below where we are now, but it really gets your confidence up when you keep constantly winning at that level and you start to believe that you're good enough to take the next step.”

They knew for certain they were ready to take that next step when they beat Antrim by a point last April to gain promotion to Division 1B of the Allianz Hurling League this year. The raw emotion and pure joy that spilled from every Kerry player after the final whistle blew in Parnell Park was one of the moments of the 2015 season. Kelly can’t help but smile when reminded of the day.

“Yeah, I think that was the moment every fella realised we are good enough to compete at the next level,” he admits. “The scenes after that game were unbelievable. We were maybe in shock at the same time, it was just unbelievable stuff. Apart from the three or four older lads who are over the 30 mark, most of the rest of us have been all on the same journey together and come through the development system together so it really builds a bond more than anything else.”

That was a landmark win for Kerry, but what has been most impressive about this team is that they were not simply content to have made that piece of history. When the well-regarded Eamon Kelly stepped down as manager at the end of 2015 and opted to take charge of Offaly instead it was easy to believe that Kerry’s stay in Division 1B might be a short and painful one. But instead they have continued to improve as a team under the new coaching ticket of Ciaran Carey and Mark Foley. Not only did they preserve their 1B status, they were very unlucky not to qualify for the League quarter-finals.

“Yeah, I think we've definitely made huge progress under Ciaran and Mark,” says Collins. “The work they've been doing, I suppose they really focus on just keeping the hurling as simple as possible and not try to overdo things and to just cut out the errors. We've been learning from the first day we played Laois to the second day we played Laois and the improvement we made between those two matches was huge.

“I think maybe that day against Wexford it kind of opened our eyes a bit and brought us back down to earth because we were after two good performances against Laois and Limerick. We were riding high at that time and we thought we were slightly a bit better than what we were. But that defeat to Wexford brought us back to reality, and since then we've bounced back.”

They did so in some style by travelling to Offaly and beating the Faithful County in their own back-yard. Anyone who doubted before that game that this Kerry team has the raw talent and ambition to continue making strides forward is now a believer.

“I suppose nobody expected us to beat Offaly,” says Collins. “We went up there and with the way the League was looking it seemed as though we'd be in the relegation match regardless. But then results nearly went the other way. We heard after the game that we were in a quarter-final and we went nuts after the game. But then we got the phone-call that Wexford were after getting a last-minute point. It was a bit of a roller-coaster, but maybe it was a blessing in disguise because we focused again for the (relegation play-off) game against Laois and we put in a great performance that day below in Tralee.

“I suppose that showed our character and our mental strength especially to be able to focus in because we had beat them comfortably enough that day above in Portlaoise. And I suppose if you over-relaxed and thought it would be just a matter of turning up to beat them again then you'd be in trouble, but we didn't, we were unbelievably tuned in and the performance we gave was nice because we haven't produced a great performance at home like that in a long time.”

The only box they have yet to tick this year is an extended run in the Championship. The find themselves in the novel position of being the first ever Munster team to compete in Leinster, but Collins believes that’s an exciting rather than strange prospect. Kerry, Offaly, Westmeath, and Carlow will all play one another in the round-robin phase with the top two teams then proceeding towards quarter-final showdowns with either Galway or Laois.

First up is the visit of Carlow to Tralee on Saturday. The romantics of Kerry hurling would probably prefer to see their team hosting the likes of Tipperary or Cork in the Munster Senior Championship someday soon, but Collins believes this is the perfect reintroduction to the Liam MacCarthy Cup for the Kingdom.

“I don't think the four teams should be just thrown into the Championship,” he says. “I think it's a great way to get your Championship going and see where you are. And if you're good enough to come through you're good enough, and if you're not, you're not.

“I think we've had a number over Westmeath and Carlow for the last couple of years so they will definitely be gunning for us. Westmeath are going well and Carlow are doing fairly well as well. I think Offaly after what we did the last day will be out for us as well.

“I think it's going to be very even and it's too tough to call who's going to come out of it. I suppose Offaly are the favourites, but I think there's going to be nothing in it. We're just going in with the attitude of taking it one game at a time. We don't want to get carried away or get caught up with what's being written in the papers.

“Ciaran (Carey) tells us not to read the papers or listen to the radio. I suppose we have bought into that and we've stayed tuned in. All we're focused on is taking it game by game. We're not talking about the Leinster Championship at all, all we're talking about is the Carlow game on Saturday. And I think that's very, very important because there won't be much between the teams.”