Fitzgerald still out of Kerry planning

JACK O’CONNOR arrived in Dublin to talk football, the Allianz NFL semi-finals, a meeting with Limerick and a progress report on his debut year.

The media though had other ideas. The whereabouts of the Kingdom’s most famous point-kicking machine need to be resolved. And O’Connor was the man to do it.

“There isn’t any lowdown (on Maurice Fitzgerald),” he answered with an exasperated sigh.

“He isn’t even playing any football at the moment. He has an injury, so he isn’t even playing club football. He’d want to be playing club football for a while before he’d want to come back for the county. I’ve put it on record about a hundred times. I asked him at the beginning of the year if he would be interested in coming back on the panel and he said he’d see how he was going in club football and make a decision then based on that.”

Case closed. And so were back to the matter at hand, and to O’Connor’s work down Kerry way.

Interestingly, all four managers have cut their teeth at the U21 inter-county grade before advancing to the senior ranks, but O’Connor is the newest of the graduates and days like yesterday are still something of a new experience for the man. “It’s a help if you’ve trained the players at underage level because they know you and you know them to a certain extent,” O’Connor said yesterday.

“As regards the transition itself, there’s a much higher media profile obviously. You can make mistakes at U21 level and colleges level and they’re not as high profile as at senior level, so you just have to be careful.

“Everything you do, you have to put a lot of thought into it. It’s enjoyable if you’re winning matches.

“We had a poor start to the league up in Longford. We lost to a last-minute goal up there and it was a tough start but we managed to turn it around and the league has been very positive so far.” But back to Sunday. Was there a danger that it may prove to be a conservative affair lest two provincial rivals reveal their hands before a possible Munster meeting later on in the year?

“From the Kerry point of view, any [championship] meeting with Limerick is certainly a long way down the line,” O’Connor replied. “We have to overcome Clare in Ennis first of all and then try and overcome Cork in Killarney, which will be a very tough nut to crack this year under Billy Morgan. It’s a long way down the line.” Just like O’Connor, Liam Kearns seemed determined to keep a low profile at the head table, though most would fade into the background when seated beside the loquacious Mickey Harte.

For Limerick, Sunday offers a chance at a first Division One final. Just as importantly however, it offers a shot at redemption after their stilted showing against Páidi Ó Sé’s Kerry side in last year’s Munster decider.

“I would hope that we have closed the gap on them and I suppose Sunday will give us an indication of whether we have or not,” admitted Kearns. “They were too good for us in the Munster final last year so we feel we’ve improved and hopefully we’ll show that we have on Sunday.”

The fact the game will be played in Limerick’s Gaelic Grounds and not Killarney should aid their task. The choice of venues for both games raised some controversy last week but Kearns brushed aside any lingering controversy. “I’m delighted to be playing in the Gaelic Grounds, we’ve been strong there this year so I don’t have a problem with that and I’m sure Kerry don’t either, they’re experienced, they’re well used to playing in all kinds of venues.”