Kerry will give all to turn tables on Cork
Yet in making this honest admission, the Kerry manager insists that he didn't allow the doubt about Darragh Ó Sé's availability to distract the selectors or players in their preparations for tomorrow's Bank of Ireland championship semi-final against Cork in Croke Park.
"There was absolutely no way our focus was going to be taken away from us even with the amount of stuff going on since he was cleared on Sunday,'' Páidí says defiantly.
"It isn't affecting us, not in the slightest and we won't be making excuses for it either,'' he added. "We are totally and utterly tuned in for this game and we want the people of Kerry to hear loudly and clearly that we are tuned in and determined.''
While he was very upset coming away from the Gallarus pitch that evening, Ó Sé says that his total concentration remained on his job of getting Kerry over the line in Croke Park. Whatever was going to happen in relation to his team captain was out of his control. It was basically a job for officials. The episode was not going to be a serious distraction when the squad resumed training two nights later.
"We were quite adamant about that. It wasn't going to affect us. We have invested too much work in turning the team around since the last Cork game and nothing absolutely nothing was going to make us take our eye off the ball. And I really mean that.''
A winning captain himself, Páidí says he worked extremely hard to push the duties of the captain aside. "I wouldn't dispute that Darragh is vital to the team, but he now realises that the captaincy can be over-done. Basically, it's a case of having to stand up and challenge yourself, and saying 'I'm one of 15, I have my part to play and the fact of being captain isn't going to take from my overall performance or break my concentration,'" he explains.
"That is what Darragh has to do. He has to do no more than anybody else. All we're expecting him to do is pull his weight in the middle of the field, as much as Donal Daly, not anything more not anything more than Declan O'Keeffe or any of the othersrest of the players.
"If we have to depend on Darragh Ó Sé to swing a game for Kerry we should rise out of it. We have to get every other fellow involved.''
Everyone has an opinion on whether or not Kerry could beat Cork without their captain. Páidí was slow to commit himself, but he was unsure. He referred back to his own playing days when Eoin Liston, Pat Spillane and Mikey Sheehy each missed an All-Ireland final and they still won all three games.
Walking on to Croke Park recently, on the eve of the game with Galway, Ó Sé felt nostalgic. He'd give anything to roll back the years and get out there on the pitch himself.
"Certainly it would be the dream of any player at the peak of his fitness to play there. It's a magnificent stadium now, with plenty of scope, a great surface and a great atmosphere. Certainly I would have loved the opportunity of playing there. Managing a team is the second best thing, but there's nothing like the real thing, getting out there and playing in the green and gold, especially in Croke Park, which always had a special place in my heart.''
When Kerry faced up to Cork in Fitzgerald Stadium in the Munster semi-final in June on a miserably wet day they did so in the expectation of maintaining their recent dominance, of getting back to Croke Park through the direct route. They were held to a draw and lost heavily a week later.
In retrospect, Ó Sé concedes that there were warning signs earlier that the team wasn't functioning effectively. For a start, he felt their forward division was struggling. They were also unsettled around midfield. "We were waiting on Donal Daly. Over the years he has had a very good partnership with Darragh Ó Sé, but he was carrying an injury. Early in the year our other midfield partner for Darragh, William Kirby, did his cruciate and then we lost Sean McGinley. We were hit with three injuries in the space of a couple of weeks.
"It was kind of catch-up all year. We were very, very unsettled and we were moving Seamus [Moynihan] about here there and everywhere. And that didn't suit us either.
"Immediately after the Munster championship semi-final we had a hard look at ourselves and while we wouldn't take away from Cork's victory for a minute, we certainly felt we could play a little bit better than the way we were playing. The couple of games [in the qualifier competition] did improve us. But we felt we did get Galway at their most vulnerable after a five-week layoff following the Connacht final.
"We were on a roll after playing Wicklow, Fermanagh and Kildare, all in the space of maybe four weeks. We felt we were meeting Galway at the right time.
"However, this game is a completely different kettle of fish altogether. Cork have gone to Croke Park and whatever people might say about Mayo, they were getting 18 and 19 points in games."
Kerry supporters, of course, relish the opportunity of their team getting the chance to avenge the defeat in Pairc Ui Chaoimh. And you can be sure that everybody involved, including the manager, looks forward with keen anticipation to achieving that. But the official line is that the focus has been entirely on their own campaign.
"We never spoke about Cork since they beat us that evening in Pairc Ui Chaoimh,'' Ó Sé comments. "Circumstances or no circumstances, they beat us fairly and squarely. And when all is said and done, they could have beaten us in Killarney as well. We know we have to get a really big game from Kerry if we are to turn the tables.
"No more than the Meath game last year, that defeat by Cork has been put behind us. We are certainly very tuned in. We worked extremely hard right up to the Galway game and after it we allowed the players go back to their clubs for a week. We raised the tempo again last week, with three good nights, and did a nice bit this week.
"We just hope we can get our fellows playing to their potential. That's always a manager's nightmare. It's always a joy for a manager if he can be sure that on the day the players will come out of the traps and play to their potential. I'd have every confidence in Kerry that we'll be well able to give Cork a game if our players can manage that. But there's always the fear that they won't come out of the traps
"Playing Cork in an All-Ireland semi-final is very different to playing Armagh because while they know a lot about Kerry, they won't know as much as the Cork lads know about us. The Cork management know as much about the Kerry team as we do ourselves.''
Ó Sé acknowledges the importance of Colin Corkery to the Cork team, "a big thorn" in Kerry's side for the last number of years. "He seems to be the one player who manages to deliver for Cork against us. From our point of view Seamus Moynihan faces a massive task, I just hope he can be up to the challenge.
"But Brendan Jer is playing out of his skin at the moment. So is Philip Clifford and Fionan Murray. They are kicking great scores and showing great movement off the ball. Colin is playing mighty but he has a lot of good players around him. They are a formidable team, very well equipped."
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