By John Harrington

When Kerry named their for Saturday’s Munster SFC semi-final against Clare on Sunday, the first thing that struck you about the selection was the sheer firepower in their attack.

A full-forward line of David Clifford, Paul Geaney, and James O’Donoghue surely guarantees scores and plenty of them if they’re given a good supply of ball.

Geaney hopes they will be, but he’s not going to stand around waiting for the ball either.

One of the areas that Kerry have really sought to improve since Peter Keane has come in as manager is the work-rate of their forwards when they don’t have possession, most particularly the manner in which they pressurise opposition defenders who are trying to carry the ball out of their own half.

In the modern game where defensive systems are so well structured the best goal-scoring opportunities are often created when you turn over ball high up the pitch.

In those instances the defensive structure is not properly set because defenders are on the front foot rather than thinking caution first. And by turning over a ball close to the opposition goal a forward immediately has a clear scoring chance.

“It’s huge,” said Geaney. “It’s the time teams are probably least likely to be conscious of being attacked is when they have the ball.

“Once a team gets turned over you can see how long it takes for the mindset to change from attack to defence so if you do that in the back line, it’s easy to attack because everyone is going to shoot forward.

“Whereas, how many guys on the opposition team are going to turn around and shoot back? Even if you are a back, it’s probably less likely. There’s scores to be got if you turnover up front, everyone knows that. Implementing it then is the thing.”

Telling a footballer he tackles like a forward has traditionally been a slur rather than a compliment, but in the modern game a forward must be just as willing and capable of doing the dirty work as defenders.

Tackling was one of the main skills of the game that Donie Buckley went after as Mayo coach and it was no coincidence that the Connacht team became so adept at forcing turnovers.

And since returning home to his native Kerry to work with new manager Peter Keane, Buckley has once again made improving the tackle technique of the Kerry players a priority.

“We’ve done a lot of work, a lot of technique work and there’s been huge improvements this year, I can see it already,” said Geaney.

“We’re not leaving lazy hands in anymore. Obviously, there’s going to be the odd time you foul intentionally and then sometimes you’re just caught fouling but there’s been massive leaps in the tackling with Donie’s drills and the emphasis he puts on the tackle.

“You could see it in Mayo how good they were in the tackle over the last few years, that was all Donie.

“Well I would imagine that was all Donie with the amount of work he does on it so hopefully we can carry that out in the championship and bring that technique to games where sometimes before we’ve been caught guilty and conceding scorable frees that have cost us or not turning over enough ball in the forward line that is making you dangerous up front.

“Hopefully, we can bring those techniques we’re doing in sessions into games. I think we will because it’s very visible to me how much we’ve improved in the tackle. I think people might be surprised at how good Kerry are in the tackle this year.”

This young Kerry team is a work in progress but their talent is undeniable.

Ahead of their Championship bow this weekend the question most of their supporters are asking is whether their team is capable of winning an All-Ireland this year or do a few more hard lessons need to be learned before they’re ready to hit those sorts of heights.

“I think if the talent is there then you can be going straight away and the talent is there,” said Geaney.

“But it's about getting the mix right and getting everything else right.

“There's a lot of moving parts and it's not about just going out and scoring, you have to defend and making sure you're not conceding. There's so many different things, kick-outs, restarts, midfield battles and match-ups as well.

“There's a lot to go into the mix. If it was just talent v talent of course you'd expect you could beat anyone but that's not the way it works unfortunately, there's a lot of hard work in the meantime and luck and all the rest

“I would see Kerry back winning All-Irelands of course, when that will be I'm not sure I'd hope it's sooner rather than later. The clock is ticking on our older guys at the moment so you'd be hoping it'll be sooner rather than later.”

Kerry (Munster SFC v Clare): Shane Ryan; Jason Foley, Tadhg Morley, Tom O'Sullivan; Gavin Crowley, Jack Sherwood, Shane Enright; David Moran, Adrian Spillane; Diarmuid O'Connor, Sean O'Shea, Stephen O'Brien; David Clifford, Paul Geaney, James O'Donoghue.