Will Kerry burnout force a fixtures reckoning?

Sponsored by Bohola native John Reddington’s UK construction company JRL Group, the venture is very much driven by Mayo but Kerry GAA will play their part in the All-Ireland final rematch and be remunerated accordingly.

What team they send across the Irish Sea is anyone’s guess, though. Featuring on the website is a graphic of David Clifford. It would be a stretch to say it is false advertising but the chances of the three-time footballer of the year lining out will be slim if Fossa win their Munster intermediate semi-final the previous Sunday and face into a final on December 6.

A touchstone may be the side Jack O’Connor fielded for The Dillon Quirke Foundation fundraiser against Tipperary in Fethard in December last year.

On that occasion, the then All-Ireland champions sent out almost an entirely different team in the second half. Only one player – Tadhg Morley – who saw action against Donegal in the final the previous July togged out. Unused substitutes like Tomás Kennedy and Armin Heinrich had minutes but they were the extent of it.

O’Connor would have been without his Dingle and An Ghaeltacht contingents after they had won senior and intermediate provincial titles the weekend before. But coming off long seasons and divisional championships in full swing, he would have been loathe to laden the load on his leading players.

Given the razzmatazz around the game in Saracens’ StoneX Stadium, he may feel compelled to play some more familiar names for this challenge in Barnet but nobody should be expecting an array of stars.

Having consistently highlighted his inter-county players’ need for rest, a proper pre-season and to satisfy both requirements the county’s need to lessen its fixture programme, the last thing O’Connor will want to do is contradict his argument.

It’s the same one his predecessor Peter Keane made when asked for his opinion on the inaugural split season in 2020. “I think the real meat in the sandwich is your inter-county player,” he said. “If you are going flat out from January to July or January to June with club, who is the main man there? The county player. You then go from June/July to October/November with your inter-county, and who’s in the middle of that, your county player. So what happens then? He gets flahed.” 

In the senior club final in Fitzgerald Stadium on Sunday, Dr Crokes’ Shane Murphy will be playing his 21st game of 2025. Evan Looney is going into his 19th outing of the year, while Mark O’Shea and Micheál Burns face their 18th.

Because of injury, Tony Brosnan’s total is currently 12 and having missed this year’s National League with an ankle injury sustained in the O’Donoghue Cup last November Gavin White’s total is 11. For Rathmore, 35-year-old Paul Murphy will be lining out for the 17th occasion this season.

Barring injury, all seven, four of whom started July’s All-Ireland final, will have at least one more outing and possibly up to four in the county championship. And then there’s the possibility of a Munster campaign.

And then there’s their O’Donoghue Cup, the final of which Dr Crokes, featuring Murphy, Looney, O’Shea and Burns, and Rathmore contested at the end of last November, but one of the divisional competitions which senior panellists have been treating indifferently since 2024.

A survey of the Kerry squad found 91% of them want a no-contact month of November. The game in London may seem to fly in the face of that although it is on at the end of the month.

Going back to the 1920s in the case of the North Kerry championship, the district competitions are time-honoured and the determination to retain them with inter-county players involved remains strong in the county.

At August’s county board meeting, Beaufort delegate Frank Coffey questioned if three divisional fixtures were more of a burnout factor than 70 inter-county training sessions.

A report on the divisional championships, which has been over a year in the making, is set to be released next month. Paul Murphy is on the committee charged with reviewing the competitions.

The potential for the Cliffords’ long day’s journey to turn into night with Fossa for the second time in four years may provide further context to convince Kerry clubs a rationalisation or at least a recalibration of fixtures is required.

O’Connor will sure hope so. In several interviews this year, he joined the dots between the tireless amount of football played in Kerry and the tiredness exhibited by the the inter-county players. Not everyone subscribes to that association but it is one the county at the very least has to consider.