O’Keeffe not looking beyond Premier

THE entire country will be anticipating a repeat of this year’s All-Ireland football final early next summer but Kerry selector Ger O’Keeffe has warned that the champions’ thoughts will not be straying beyond Tipperary.

Last night’s draw in Croke Park has again landed Kerry and Cork on the same side of the Munster Championship for 2010.

Like last year, Limerick are on the other side and will fancy a crack at the final itself.

The similarities with the 2009 Munster draw have even extended to Kerry being handed a quarter-final test which they will have to pass before even thinking about yet another championship tussle with the Rebels.

This time though Tipperary should be a tougher opponent than Waterford were earlier this year.

The Premier county will have spent a spring rubbing shoulders with counties like Armagh, Kildare and Meath in Division Two.

“One benefit of this year’s championship just gone was that we had a game under our belts before we met Cork,” said O’Keeffe, “but we won’t be looking at it that way next year. Tipperary’s star is rising all the time.

“Football is developing in Munster. Waterford and Clare are probably lagging a bit behind but Limerick and Tipperary are improving and Munster aren’t the poor relations in the country anymore.

“Tipperary will be under a Kerryman in John Evans and he will know exactly what they have to do.”

As in Munster, Connacht’s traditional heavyweights are also on course to knock heads before the decider.

Galway will be expected to cruise past New York while Mayo will have to contend with Kevin Walsh’s Sligo.

The westerners proved stubborn opponents for Galway in Markievicz Park this year. Watching all that from the other side of the draw will be Roscommon and Leitrim for whom opportunity knocks.

Leinster and Ulster are, as always, vast mazes which will require skilful negotiating and the current market leaders in the eastern sector – Dublin and Kildare – have been pitted on opposite sides next year.

Kildare clearly have the tougher side of that coin, based on recent evidence in any case, while Mick O’Dwyer will fancy his chances of repeating Wicklow’s 2009 heroics without jumping straight through the back door.

Not for the first time, it is in Ulster where some of the most tantalising ties lie in store.

Derry and Armagh have struggled to hit the heights in recent years but the pair still carry enough collective kudos to make their meeting in the provincial preliminary round a definite date for the diary.

There will also be a repeat of this year’s Ulster final between Tyrone and Antrim while Donegal and Down could even elbow both of those out of the spotlight if that duo are in form next summer.

All in all then, plenty to whet the appetite ahead of the new season.

Bring it on.