A backdoor route is the destination for the losers of Kerry versus Clare in the Munster Senior Football Championship, Mikey Sheehy insists the Kingdom will be doing their best to go directly through the front door.
Speaking ahead of the semi-final meeting, the Kerry selector states that they will be treating this clash as knockout. “Championship football in the olden days used to be knockout stuff so we still go out to win every game and it’s very important to have another Munster Championship medal in your pocket if you can but I mean there are huge obstacles in the way between all the teams but we would still be hoping that we’ll come out on top”.
Named at right corner-forward on the GAA Football team of the Century, Mikey Sheehy is one of the undisputed greats of the game. The sixty one year old believes the Kingdom still play an attractive brand of football.
“We still like to play with a bit of flair and I think we still have good forwards that are serious scorers and are game-changing players and I would still like to think that we play attractive football and move the ball on as quickly as possible up until the danger area and pick off our scores”.
One of Kerry’s toughest encounters on their journey to winning the All-Ireland in 2014 was in Ennis as they faced the Banner in the Munster Championship. Sheehy recalls that they were very fortunate to prevail.
“Clare have had a fantastic campaign, people don’t realise that in 2014 we played Clare above in Ennis in the semi-final of the Munster Championship and it was level at half-time, we were lucky to come out by four or five points in the finish”.
They will be in opposing dugouts in Fitzgerald Stadium but that doesn’t stop the seven time All-Star from pausing and admiring the work done by Colm Collins for Clare football. “Colm Collins has done a fantastic job with them and it was culminated in the brilliant performance they had against Kildare in the Division 3 Final. They’ve done mighty work and we’ll have to be at our very best to beat them”.