Coming up against Clare in the last four of the Munster Senior Football Championship will be a big challenge for the Kerry footballers according to their manager Éamonn Fitzmaurice.
With players such as Shane McGrath, Podge Collins, Enda Coughlan and Shane Hickey all failing to make Clare’s starting fifteen in their three point win over Limerick, Fitzmaurice highlights this as a visible indicator of their improvement. “They’ve added depth to their bench aswell when they can be bringing in players like that as subs so we know they’re going to be a tough challenge”.
A three-time All-Ireland medallist as a player, Éamonn told Radio Kerry that the midfield area will be an important battleground on Sunday. “I think in all of the games now it’s a big part of the game the midfield battle from the point of view that if you can win enough ball there and you’re on the front foot and going the other way you can trouble teams whereas if the opposition are in top in the middle of the field and they’re coming at you in droves it can be hard to defend so it is absolutely going to be an important battle next Sunday”.
Sunday’s encounter will be Kerry’s first Championship outing since losing the 2015 All-Ireland Final to Dublin 0-12 0-09. The Kingdom boss is expecting their hunger will be noticeable in Killarney this weekend.
“So far this year I’ve been very happy with the lads and the way that they’ve trained, most of the games, the first two league games weren’t up to scratch, the last league game wasn’t up to scratch but the games in between we were happy with so there’s been great hunger within the setup so far this year but I think you only really know in the big championship days and particularly when you’re being tested, you go through a sticky period in a game and can fellas dig it out. Look absolutely when you lose an All-Ireland it always sharpens the hunger so you’d be definitely hoping that would be visible from next Sunday on”.
Coming to grips with the Banner’s short kickouts and the midfield pairing of Gary Brennan and Cathal O’Connor is key to Kerry’s plan. “Joe Hayes is very good at those short kickouts and it gets their running game going but they also then do have the option of both players outside, I think that when Cathal O’Connor went off the last day that he was a loss from the point of view that they were able to double up on Gary Brennan and make it tough for him but when you’ve two good midfield options like that out the field aswell as having the array of short kickouts that they have, you know they’ve been working on that for the past three or four years so they’re very comfortable doing it so that’s going to be a challenge for us and it’s something we’ll have to deal with”.
Kerry came close to winning the Division 1 League title but once more it was Dublin that got the better of them in the decider. It’s been seven weeks since that clash and the period between then and now has been testing for Fitzmaurice who was appointed Kerry manager in August 2012.
“It was a lot shorter, it’s still a challenging period no matter how long or short it is because of the fact from my point of view that the players on county championship weeks they’re gone back to their clubs, we only have them on the Tuesday night they’re gone back on the Thursday they’re with their clubs at the weekend so there was a couple of weeks where we just trained once on the Tuesday and we didn’t have them back then till the following Tuesday so there was challenges with that of course as always happens when there’s club fixtures there’s injuries and there’s knocks and you just have to deal with that so it is a tricky period. We’re delighted now to be out the other side of it and to be looking forward to matches again and to be trying to see where we’re at and if we can improve further from the league”.
In the wake of their defeat to Dublin earlier on in the year, the 2014 All-Ireland winning manager claimed full-forward Kieran Donaghy was subjected to “rape and pillage” fouling by Dublin defenders. Fitzmaurice says the comments were fuelled by his tiredness with how long the problem had been going on for.
“I don’t have any regrets about saying what I said, the language maybe could have been a bit more politically correct, no I don’t regret it. I think there’s always the thing when you lose a game that you don’t want to come across as a sore loser but there comes a point when you have to say something aswell and I was sick of it to be honest and I felt something had to be said but like I said my phraseology was more something that should have been used in a dressing room than a press conference”.