By John Harrington

The fine performances of the Kerry hurlers in Division 1B of the Allianz Hurling League has been one of the GAA stories of the year so far, but team-trainer Mark Foley saw the script coming.

He had the inside track on just how much potential there was in Kerry hurling having helped Ciaran Carey lead the Lixnaw club to the 2014 Kerry Championship. And he saw no reason why he and his former Limerick team-mate could not have success on a grander scale when they agreed to take charge of the Kerry team for the 2015 season.

The common perception was that they had a tough act to follow after the departing manager Eamonn Kelly got Kerry promoted to Division 1B and win the Christy Ring Cup in 2015, but instead they have raised the team’s standards to an even higher level. Others might be surprised, but Foley isn’t.

“Ah, not really, no,” he says. “I'd know most of the players because I was involved at club level there for the last couple of years so I'm happy enough with the raw material that was there and they all the basic skills and it's not as if Ciaran and myself and the lads went in and waved a magic wand, Eamonn Kelly did great work with them last year and it's just getting them up another notch. The raw material, we felt, was there and just to improve on what they were doing last year and I think they've improved a bit alright but that's as much to do with the teams they're playing against as anything we're doing.

“To be honest with you, I felt that they were going to kick on because I'd have known the players. It wasn't as if I was going from a situation where I didn't know the players and didn't know what they were capable of. We felt that they were going to kick on. The stiffer the competition, even though there was going to be tough days and difficult days, in the greater scheme of things we felt that it was going to benefit them as long as we could maintain our status in 1B, which we did.”

Kerry have made such impressive strides in the past couple of years that no-one is wondering any more when their fortunes when fade, instead the question is just how good can they get? They’ve gotten this far despite picking all of their players from eight clubs in a small pocket of north Kerry, and Foley believes there will always be a limit to their ambitions unless the game can put down roots in the rest of the county.

“Well, I suppose given their resources, they'd probably have to expand their resources to be honest about it,” he says. "Offaly won an All-Ireland with a small playing population base so it is possible but, long-term, it would be stretching it to say that it can be maintained over a long period. You'd probably expect teams with Kerry's resources to come with a good bunch of players every so often but not to be able to stay at that level full-time.

“To be able to maintain and improve what they're at and, long-term, be able to compete with the teams in Munster the playing resources would have to be strengthened. But, to be fair, the Kerry county board are working hard at trying to increase the amount of players playing hurling in Kerry. There's a huge work going on in Tralee at underage at the minute but it's going to be probably 10 years' time before the results of that will be seen.”

In the short-term, they can continue to make progress this year by having a good cut off the Leinster Championship. They play Carlow in the first game of the round robin in Tralee tomorrow, and will then play Westmeath and Offaly in their other two matches of that phase of the competition. If they finish in the top two of the round robin group, then they go on to play either Laois or Galway in the Leinster quarter-final.

The presence of Kerry in the Leinster Championship has raised some eye-brows and some traditionalists might prefer them to try their luck in Munster, but Foley is convinced this is the right place for them to improve in the short-term at least.

“At the moment I feel it's the right balance,” he says. “But if you have a situation where Kerry are in Division 1B next year and taking on these teams, or in two years' time or in three years' time and taking on stronger teams…we had Clare in our group this year and Limerick, we played well against Limerick, we did very poorly against Clare, we did poorly against Wexford. But give a situation in three or four years' time where you have that kind of quality of opposition and you're competing with them and beating them the odd time, well then you're in a situation to be able to maybe look at going into Munster but I think at the moment it's a perfect fit for Kerry, where they are at the minute.”

Foley’s focus is Kerry hurling right now, but his heart will always be in Limerick. Like every Shannonsider he was stung by their heavy defeat to Waterford in the Allianz Hurling League semi-final, but he still feels they can mount a challenge for the Liam MacCarthy Cup this year.

“Oh they can, yeah. They've plenty of time. They're not out until the end of June I think. That's a nice bit away. There's a couple of rounds on in the club championship in the next three weeks. Ah they can, yeah. Obviously things will have to improve. The talent is there, it's just a matter of putting it together. Just a matter of putting it together really and getting a bit of confidence and momentum and I think of all the counties out there, Limerick are a team that thrive on momentum. So the opposite to that, they can be very poor when they have no momentum but when they get on a run it can be very difficult to stop.”

Limerick are going through a transitionary phase at the moment as they blend in more and more players from last year’s All-Ireland winning U-21 team. And Foley believes adapting to the rigours of senior hurling is not something you do easily, no matter how talented you are.

“To be fair, Limerick won an under-21 All-Ireland last year which is great like but it's a totally different ball game,” he says. “I don't know how many played against Waterford, was it seven or eight? It doesn't happen overnight and that seven or eight aren't fellas that have been there over the last year or two, like Ronan Lynch, he's only literally into the scene since Na Piarsaigh won an All-Ireland.

“A couple of more lads it's their first year, Tom Morrissey, it's his first year so it's very difficult to go straight in at that level and produce. Even the likes of Clare now, a lot of their players that have won under-21s, I know they won the All-Ireland a couple of years ago out of the blue but a lot of their players are only finding their feet this year now.

“It's kind of stacked against you to try and come in and do it straight away, there's very few teams. Cork did it in '99, Clare did it a couple of years ago. You'll find with a lot of the Kilkenny lads, they were 23/24 before they started breaking in but the Limerick guys, they're going to be looking for them to do it a little bit earlier. It's a big ask and I think it'll be tough for them but if they hit form they're definitely capable of doing something.”