Maher’s diet of book and ball paying rich dividends
With a PhD thesis due in UL in October, that’s easier said than done. Especially when the subject, crystal transformation and crystallisation methodologies, sounds so intimidating.
Pharmaceutical and chemistry student Maher won’t lie — it’s a demanding body of work so he’s heeded his selector’s pearl of wisdom. At least partially.
“At the same time, you don’t want to do nothing because you’ll have too much time to think and have the game played by Tuesday or Wednesday.
“It comes back to finding that balance. Using the study to take your mind off the game and then having time to think about it. You just want to enjoy it.”
There was a time, though, when Maher struggled for that equilibrium between his studies and his football. The latter suffered as a result.
“I suppose the first couple of years I was focusing on the college stuff a bit too much and getting too caught up in it whereas now I have my balance around it. When I need to do a gym session I try and go away early in the day and do it. I can then study.”
Who knows, Maher’s ascension into the team as a regular starter may have come earlier had he struck that stability between his commitments. The fact is he’s now become more of a regular fixture in Kerry’s midfield.
But for two cruciate injuries in as many years, his fellow UL student David Moran may have been alongside him in Cork on Sunday. As Maher says, that’s the way it was looking early last year.
“I remember last year we were just starting and Jack [O’Connor] was beginning to settle on a partnership on David and myself.
“We played maybe two games alongside each other and things were coming together. It was unfortunate when it happened then and again this year. It would have been great to have him putting pressure on Bryan [Sheehan] and myself along with Seamus [Scanlon] and Johnny Buckley.
“It’s an option lost but I’ve been onto him and he’s very positive about the whole thing.”
But what about Maher, the man who wears that illustrious number 8 jersey with not one but two targets on his back? Sure, he was aware of the negativity expressed in Kerry about the midfield earlier last year.
Eamonn Fitzmaurice, shortly expected to rejoin the camp as selector, insisted back then there was no crisis in the engine room. Maher and Sheehan proved him right.
“At that stage I’d been through a few ordeals before,” the 25-year-old smiled. “Water runs off your back with those things.
“The main thing is Jack and the management have shown faith in me. Even getting tips from fellas like Seamus. There are no 15 players going to win a match in the modern game. It’s a panel game and everyone works together.
“I wouldn’t have said it affected us. It probably helped us a bit — going into games under the radar. They were expecting nothing so we could have a right cut off it.
“There’s no point trying to be a Darragh Ó Sé or anyone before; you’ve to be your own player and try and prove myself as Anthony Maher.”
Coming from such a small place like Duagh and being the first player from the club to establish himself in the team since Dan McAuliffe in the early 1960s, Maher’s task was made that bit more difficult.
“It gives me a great spirit to represent my family and the parish. At the start, I had Kieran Quirke in with me so it was handy coming into a Kerry dressing room as a young fella.
“It can be kinda daunting looking at all these massive players like Donaghy, Declan Sullivan, Gooch, the Sés, Gally [Paul Galvin].
“It was great having a guy you could relate to at the start but as you move on and progress you aim to be more of a senior player.”
The overriding message from the likes of Maher and his team-mates these past couple of seasons is the enjoyment garnered in the camp. It wasn’t as if it hadn’t been there before — but their enthusiasm has been renewed.
“We’re being viewed as a team in transition and you’ve young fellas breaking their arses to get into the team. They’re pushing the older fellas and they don’t want to be mollycoddled. The more you’re challenged the more you enjoy it and raise yourself. A couple of years ago they would be cemented for spots but young fellas are now putting their hands up for jerseys.”
