Kerry duo Cooper and Galvin passed fit for decider

COLM COOPER and Paul Galvin have been passed fit and will start Sunday’s All-Ireland football final for Kerry against Cork – but the Croke Park decider has come too soon for Kieran Donaghy to line out from the start.

Kingdom coach Jack O’Connor says his squad, appearing in a sixth successive decider, have overcome “niggles, bits and pieces”, and will choose from a full deck this week.

Their options will include the returning Kieran Donaghy, but it looks like Tommy Walsh, Donncha Walsh and captain Darran O’Sullivan will be battling for two places in attack.

Said O’Connor of Donaghy’s return: “He’s been playing football now for the last couple of weeks and showing pretty good form in training, so we’re happy enough with him. Obviously it would be great if he had a bit more time.”

His Cork counterpart Conor Counihan also has minor injury worries, with corner back Ray Carey battling to overcome a shoulder injury. Douglas’ dual player Eoin Cadogan has forced his way into contention and if the Clyda Rovers defender were to miss out, Cadogan could get a surprise start in the full back line.

O’Connor believes that, whatever the line-ups, Sunday’s football final will be a ferociously intense 70 minutes.

“Cork have taken a few points on board from the northern teams, where they’re getting a lot of bodies back and tackling ferociously at times. And the key for us is we’re going to have to move the ball very quickly, because if you dwell on the ball, these fellas are taking tackling to a new level.”

After losing to Cork in Munster, taking to the road in the qualifiers always meant that Kerry were vulnerable on the qualifier route.

‘‘What you have to remember is that a team that loses an All-Ireland final – which Kerry did last year – they want to free-wheel or fast-forward back into another final. People don’t realise that there is a lot of mental baggage if you lose an All-Ireland final. So you just want to get the opportunity to get back into a final again, and I think the boys were probably saying ‘this is a long road back into a final.’ And it was a bit of a struggle, mentally, more than anything else.

“But I think once they got back to Croke Park and they got the smell of it again in their nostrils, they got their motivation back.”

However the Kerry coach believes that altering Championship structures is imperative: “I’ve always said that the championship format, with the provincial system and you having to wait around for games, will have to change, sooner rather than later. It’s abnormal players waiting around four or five weeks between matches. You are training all the year for four or five matches; and the way we had matches four weeks in a row, and the fourth week we hit our best form.

‘‘So this thing about players being tired from too many matches is a joke. They get tired from training – and they get bored from training – so matches are what they look forward to. The championship should be made more compact or has to be changed to a championship league-type format.”

If Kerry clinch their 36th All-Ireland on Sunday, the return of centre back Mike McCarthy will be viewed as one of the masterstrokes of the season.

“I know he’s defied the odds a bit like Brian Corcoran, but class is permanent and that man is a natural enough athlete, he has good pace, and didn’t take that much time at all,’’ said O’Connor.

“He was marooned in the full-back line, a bit like Seamus Moynihan, for years; and there was a great footballer somewhere inside that wasn’t been expressed.”