Kerry star opens up on 'least enjoyable year' despite first All-Ireland in 31 years

Kerry's Kayleigh Cronin has revealed how the 2024 season was one of her “least enjoyable” despite the county’s first All-Ireland success in 31 years.

Cronin also picked up an All Star award at full-back last Saturday night but it was while playing out of her favoured position earlier in the year that she hit rock bottom, outlining how she had “tears in my eyes” leaving the field after one League game. All’s well that ends well as she returned to the edge of the square and Kerry went all the way, but the carryover from the previous season’s All-Ireland final loss to Dublin and her own drop in form made it a fairly trying winter, spring and early summer, all told.

“If you were to ask me, I'd say that this year was probably one of my least enjoyable years, in terms of playing with Kerry,” Cronin said when speaking at the launch of the AIB GOAL Mile. explained. “I was fairly low for a while. Obviously coming back off the finish of last season, but also just in terms of how I was playing.

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“I was coming out of every single game hammering myself, saying like… I just couldn't find form basically. If you told me in even May that I'd finish the year with an All-Ireland medal in my back pocket, never mind an All-Star, I would have laughed at you. But I'd go through it all again no bother if you told me it would be the same outcome next year.”

Pin-pointing her lowest moment, she said: “I came off the field after the last round of the game in Fitzgerald Stadium against Galway and I actually nearly ran off the pitch with Mags Donoghue, one of the selectors, and sports psychologist Claire Thornton.

“They were both either side of me and I said, ‘I have to get off this pitch before any kids or parents or whoever come on here.’ I had tears in my eyes, I was like ‘I can’t do this no more.’

“I just felt so bad about how I was playing and how I was contributing to the group. So I did a lot of work with Claire and had a good few chats with the lads and stuff as well, just to find form and find different bits and bobs that I was doing to feel positive about.

“It was up to me as well to be honest to try to turn it around and say, ‘It’s not about you girl, to be honest. Like, who cares once you are winning?' And just try to find a way to help the group. Thanks be to God I did that in the tail end of the year.”

Cronin admitted that she’s a “glass half-empty kind of person”.

“(It’s) something I’m trying to change because it does no good for nobody. I put so much into it that I do expect quite a lot of myself and it’s disappointing I suppose when you are putting so much in but you feel there is more in the tank and you haven’t contributed as much as you would have liked. But, look, if next year was to go the same way, I wouldn’t care if I knew what the end result would be.”

Meanwhile, keeping joint-managers Declan Quill and Darragh Long in place was critical to Kerry’s All-Ireland success this year, says Kayleigh Cronin.

There were rumours that the pair would step aside in the aftermath of last year’s final defeat to Dublin but the group remained intact and they finally bridged the gap to 1993 with a comfortable win over Galway in the decider.

Kerry's Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh celebrates with joint managers Declan Quill (left) and Darragh Long as she comes off in the final moments of the All-Ireland final
(Image: ©INPHO/Ben Brady)

“I think that group needed to go once more,” said Cronin. “I think we knew we had gone to the bottom of the well in 2022 and 2023 and we just had to dig that little bit deeper in 2024.

“Not that it’s unachievable without them. Sorry, that’s not what I mean to say. But I just feel that for 2024 for us to all stick together and all come together and just once more, put your hands around each other and say, ‘We’ll go one more’.

“I think, number one, it made it more special, because obviously the lads had put so much time into it the four years previous and had given us such belief over the years that there’s nobody else that I would have wanted to win it with for the first one, so it was huge.”

They have since stepped down, with Mark Bourke in line to become the new manager.

Cronin added: “I know a bit about him to be fair. He's been around the club scene in Kerry for a while, he's had a hugely successful term with Milltown there recently. A couple of the lads from Milltown have spoken very, very highly of him.

“Again, like that, they've seen the stories, heard the rumours and said that if we get him, we're very lucky and that we are certainly not stepping down in terms of quality or anything. He's certainly able for the job. So if he does get it, I have no doubt that he'll be raring to go.”

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