Hands up as Star relishing return to the spotlight

AS Kieran Donaghy posed patiently for snap-happy juveniles after Kerry’s Championship opener on Sunday in Thurles, he can’t have imagined how quickly the defeat of Tipperary would be swallowed whole by the handpass debate.

But lost in the blame game about over and underhand fist passes is the re-emergence of the most potent attacking force in inter-county football following a year of injury interruptions. Lost to everyone, maybe, except watching Cork manager Conor Counihan.

Counihan has two choices when his Munster champions put their title on the line in Killarney on June 6 – double team Donaghy, or stop the supply to the Austin Stacks man by shutting off the source. Given Eoin Cadogan’s lack of match practice and Jamie O’Sullivan’s lack of experience at full back at senior level, Cork may try to close down Kerry further out the field, starving the Kingdom full-forward of possession.

Such matters are of peripheral concern to ‘Star’, the quintessential happy-go-lucky footballer who’s just buzzed to be back involved.

“Cork will be tough but these are the kind of games we train for, this is what we do all the slogging for back in January and February in the muck and the rain in Austin Stack Park. Killarney, a drop of sunshine, a nice Kerry and Cork crowd with a bit of banter. Perfect.”

What Kerry will glean from Sunday’s 2-18 to 2-6 victory over John Evans’ Tipperary is debatable, but it afforded precious championship game time to several under-cooked players like Tomás O Sé, Colm Cooper, Mike McCarthy, Bryan Sheehan and Donaghy himself.

“Bryan did extremely well and was very clinical in his finishing. The Gooch showed well for ball and kicked a few fabulous scores in the first half that the camera angles couldn’t do justice, kicking from the left side into that breeze. Of course, it’s a benefit to have a game under our belts but we know what’s ahead of us in three weeks.

“You don’t have many years at this level and to be missing out on games and seasons is never easy so I’m just happy to be back playing. I missed Cork game in Killarney last year, it’s my favourite game of the year.”

Launching the Ulster Bank’s Championship sponsorship in Dublin yesterday, Donaghy found himself in demonstrative mode, trying to determine the difference between a legal and illegal handpass. He still wasn’t sure, having been pulled back on Sunday in teeing Bryan Sheehan up for what he felt was a legitimate first half goal.

“I thought I fisted it but I don’t know, it happened so quickly. This is why it’s going to be hard on refs, these things happen so quick. If there’s a big ball kicked into me and he’s (the referee) 40 yards away and I catch it and fist it, it’s going to be very hard to see it.

“You’re going to have endless people on The Sunday Game saying, ‘look it, there were 10 passes here that were wrong’ and you’re going to have more stress on referees.

“The GAA must try and make it easier on them. It’s been brought in very late which is the strange thing. We were getting used to the fist under League rules and then for the last month, we’re running around trying to get used to that normal handpass because we lost touch with it. Now we’ll have to go back to the drawing board again and have a talk about it because even when we were playing a little box game in the warm-up on Sunday, I could see there were seven or eight frees caused by (incorrect) hand-passes.