“This thing about going public and throwing your hat in the ring is a myth”

FIRST things first. Let’s deal with the green and gold elephant in the corner of the room.

For the last decade, John Evans has made no secret of his desire to manage his native Kerry. As well he might. His credentials are as impressive as anyone in the race to succeed Pat O’Shea. There’s the county championship titles and the All-Ireland club crown with Laune Rangers in 1996. Don’t forget the spell at the helm of the county U21 side while last year there’s his mini-miracle of guiding perennial basement boys, Tipperary, to the high altitude of NFL Division Three without talisman Declan Browne.

But therein lies the stumbling block. Twenty four hours before the Kerry executive met to begin the process to find O’Shea’s successor, Tipperary County Board delegates were delighted to re-appoint Evans to the Premier helm for 2009 after his magnificent debut season.

That old adage about buses springs to mind one suspects for the Killorglin man.

“At present I am tied into Tipperary,” Evans said yesterday. “I have a job in progress in Tipperary and it has gone very well for the first year. And I hope to continue that in 2009.”

But there is a but.

“But it is a statement of fact that it would be a huge, huge privilege for me to train my own county team.”

But does that hold true if the job has become one of most highly pressurised in the GAA?

Does any potential candidate accept, alongside his duty to the County Board, that barstools experts from Tarbert to Tousist are not just entitled — but expected — to undermine the manager and his team with zeal? Was Páidí Ó Sé right about the mindset and expectations of Kerry fans? Is it worth it all in a county that demands leasing rights for Sam Maguire every year?

“I would say whether you are with a Division Four team or a Division One outfit, you take up the job knowing that part and parcel of that is going to be criticism. Part and parcel is the danger of getting you head chopped off. Part and parcel is trying to survive.

“That is simply what goes with the job whether it be in Tipp or Kerry.

“I am not going to defend or promote whoever went before and the pressures they had to deal with. Anyone becoming Kerry manager must accept that they are going to be criticised sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly. Kerry people at the present time have very, very high expectations. Whether that was misplaced, I don’t know.”

He continued: “We have been spoilt with a very good team in the last couple of years. Jack O’Connor came in, won an All-Ireland, lost an All-Ireland, won an All-Ireland and then left. Then Pat came along won one and then lost one.

“Everyone had an opinion in Kerry before and after the fact. Before Jack was appointed there was all this talk that ‘this guy never played football for Kerry’. Then Pat came along and it was all that he was ‘going to bring a Crokes style of play’. Before that you had Páidí and it was a different set of expectations again.”

Is there a dearth of management talent in the Kingdom? Again Evans thinks otherwise.

“There are wonderful managers out there. I disagree with all this talk in the papers that Kerry is struggling to find a quality manager. You have to rule everything in and nothing out.”

So where are they? “This thing about going public and throwing your hat in the ring is a myth,” continued Evans.

“The way it works is that the County Board executive get together, discuss who their man is and then go after that person. It doesn’t matter what I or anyone else thinks of Jack O’Connor, Sean Geaney, Liam Kearns or whoever else. The Board will go after the man that they want.”

There will be other days to talk about the Kerry job. Today Evans will be on sideline duty in Fermoy as the Munster footballers bid to defeat Ulster and progress to the M Donnelly Interprovincial championship final on Saturday week.

Evans accepts it is the most maligned competition on the GAA calendar but insists it has great support from the players.

“Everybody seems to be knocking it. But this is great outlet for inter-county players to perform together. Nowadays, much more than years ago, players see very little of each others. It is great to see how friendly they are and how much they enjoy playing on the same team. We have been having a get together one night a week in Mallow and there has been a great response. These nights are just getting to know one another and building up the spirit. All players available to us say it is a privilege to represent the province.”

There’s the nub though — ‘available to us’. Evans and company are fighting a losing battle against domestic and international duties. County deciders in Tipperary and Limerick along with two semis in Kerry tomorrow have robbed Munster of some big name talent. The International Rules in Australia makes a bad situation worse.

“Quite a number of lads are tied up at the weekend for various reasons, guys who would have been very keen on playing. It is an extremely difficult time of year to have it on and because of all these other things it is not getting the due credit that it deserves. It is hard to figure out a solution.”

Today’s M Donnelly GAA Interpro Schedule

Hurling semi-finals: Munster v Ulster, Fermoy, 1.30pm; Connacht v Leinster, Kiltoom, 3.30pm

Football semi-finals: Munster v Ulster, Fermoy, 3pm; Connacht v Leinster, Kiltoom, 5pm

MUNSTER: P Fitzgerald (Tipperary); D Duggan (Cork), J McCarthy (Limerick), P Reidy (Kerry); T O Se (Kerry), S Lavin (Limerick), T O’Gorman (Waterford); J Galvin (Limerick), N Murphy (Cork); P Kelly (Cork), D Goulding (Cork), M O’Gorman (Waterford); D O’Connor (Cork), M Cussen (Cork), I Ryan (Limerick).

Subs: J Hayes (Clare), E Rockett (Waterford), S O’Donoghue (Cork), P Browne (Limerick), A O’Connor (Cork), M Crowley (Limerick), G Hurney (Waterford), G Spillane (Cork).

ULSTER squad: J Reilly (Cavan), R Gallagher (Fermanagh), F Moriarty (Armagh), V Corey (Monaghan), D Harte (Tyrone), C Gormley (Tyrone), A Carr (Down), B Donaghy (Armagh), P Jordan (Tyrone), K Cassidy (Donegal), K Lacey (Donegal), E Lennon (Monaghan), B Dooher (Tyrone), R Woods (Monaghan), D Hughes (Down), D Clerkin (Monaghan), S Johnston (Cavan), E Bradley (Derry), B Mallon (Armagh), S O’Neill (Tyrone), R Kavanagh (Donegal), T Freeman (Monaghan), R Clarke (Armagh).