Kerry star hurler Dáithí Griffin says team have no fear ahead of defining contests

The Kingdom weren’t much fancied prior to the Joe McDonagh Cup, coming in off the back of a disappointing league performance that saw them finish with just one win from their five games.

Since then, however, the green and gold have upset the odds to charge to the top of the table alongside this weekend’s opponents, Laois, with wins over Westmeath and Down.

“The ground is getting that bit harder, it suits us,” the St Brendan’s club man said.

"Then when you bring back Brandon Barrett, David Woulfe is back from injury, Dan Goggin’s fit, so when you look around the dressing room and see all the players back and you think you’re really going to have to up your performance here to keep your starting position.

"Once you look around the dressing room and see everyone’s fit again you know yourself that I need to start upping it here.”

The prospect of facing Laois, who claimed the Division 2A title earlier this spring, is a potentially daunting one considering they scored seven goals last weekend – albeit against a desperately disappointing Meath – for Griffin and his colleagues, however, there’s no fear.

“No, not really to be honest,” he stressed.

"It’s all momentum. We feel like we’ve a bit of confidence gathered now. The squad is getting stronger with every week so we feel we’re in a good place to take them on.

"We won’t look too far ahead, we’ll look as far as next week, like I say it’s all momentum. You get that first win off the back, you get the second win now again, you’re going into training hopping on Wednesday and we’ll take all of that into Laois. It’s all momentum.”

Griffin has been something of a revelation for manager Stephen Molumphy’s side this year, pretty much seamlessly slotting into the sweeper’s role vacated by the retiring Mikey Boyle, a legendary figure in the county and beyond.

“It’s an enjoyable role, just protecting the full-back line,” Griffin explained.

"They [Down] still got in for two goals in the first half, which we weren’t overly happy about, but the second half it was a complete shut-out. We thought at half-time they’d need goals to beat us in the second half, we just worked on keeping that out and we did that.

"It was more front foot [in the second half]. When you start off the game you always start off that bit cautious trying to protect your full-back line and then as the game progresses you take more chances.

"In the second half we needed to be that bit further out as we wanted to play the running game and I had to stand just twenty yards further out the field, yeah.

“The second half was brilliant. We kind of said it playing against the wind nearly suits us better, we use the ball better, the first half we’d fourteen or fifteen wides.

"We addressed that at half-time, that we’d start playing it into the boys and you could see that there at the start of the second half. Mossy [O’Connor] thirteen points or something like that today and Dan Goggin again with a few so once we started using the inside line we played a way better.”