Cooper hails arrival of ‘hero’ Mikey to camp

He idolised him as a player and from next season Colm Cooper will have Mikey Sheehy as a Kerry selector.

A day after giving an exhibition of football for Dr Crokes in Sheehy’s home town of Tralee on Sunday, the outgoing Kerry captain couldn’t be happier with the appointment of Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s new selector.

“In fairness, he was a decent enough player, wasn’t he?” smiled Cooper about Sheehy. “He probably knows what he is talking about.

“I believe Mikey is going to be involved so it will be great. On a personal level he has been a hero.

“He’ll bring something else to the table, he’ll be a fresh voice and a fresh face. It will be much needed for the benchmark Donegal have set. We have a long way to go to see if we can get up to that level.

“Some time when new people come in it freshens things up and gives fellas a new lease of life. Hopefully that will be the case.”

Darran O’Sullivan recently voiced his preference for losing playing a traditional style than winning ugly.

Cooper doesn’t share his team-mate’s opinion and expects Fitzmaurice won’t move too far away from the brand of football played under Jack O’Connor. “We don’t want to be Barcelona. I prefer to be winning, to be honest. We’ve grown up in Kerry and since I’ve been watching Kerry we’ve only known one way to play, like. I don’t think there will be a massive evolution of playing.”

Cooper is convinced Donegal won’t be easily removed from the throne they took last month and Kerry have some way to go before taking the top spot they last enjoyed three years ago.

“I think everything comes in cycles. I feel Donegal aren’t a one hit wonder. People say they have won their All-Ireland and they won’t do it next year. I certainly feel that isn’t the case.

“The level they are playing at they won’t just drift away. The challenge for everyone else is to get to that level. The professionalism that they played at and I believed that they trained at is a challenge to everyone.

“Teams just have to lift it. I can’t speak for other teams but I know if we don’t come back and improve by 20, 25% we won’t be involved in the shake up next year. That’s the challenge for us and for Eamonn.

“Certain performances this year weren’t up to scratch. That’s an honest assessment. Whether we like it or not that’s the brass tacks of it.

“But I have no doubt it is in us. If I didn’t think it was in the team I would be more alarmed. We’ll just have to go back and regroup and see how we go about it.”

On Sunday week, Cooper comes face-to-face with another of Fitzmaurice’s selectors, former Kerry team-mate Diarmuid Murphy who is part of the Dingle backroom team.

“They remind me a bit of ourselves a couple of years ago in that we got to semi-finals, finals and were beaten.

“Of all the club teams in Kerry, besides ourselves, they are the team that are coming. I only saw 10 minutes of their (semi-final) game and they looked very organised.

“I just think they feel this is their time to win a county title. We were in that position a few years ago. It will be a great obstacle but a great challenge to see if we can go to the well for another stage.”

Cooper, weighing in with five points, and Eoin Brosnan showed the way for Crokes against Laune Rangers in Sunday’s semi-final but Johnny Buckley’s show of strength was just as noteworthy.

“In fairness he is a very dedicated guy, he is very honest and he is making inroads and developing as a player,” said Cooper. “Midfield is a position that takes a little longer to develop than a forward or a back. He’s getting to the stage where he is developing in the position and he has probably been of our best players if not our best player this year.”