Fitzmaurice: Kerry won’t take Donegal route to top
“In terms of fitness we’ll be trying to take that to a new level — but in a new direction,” said Fitzmaurice.
“Looking at the Kerry players in the county championship, they have good fitness and the older players would have huge reservoirs of fitness from the years of training.
“I don’t think we’ll have to go to the extremes, possibly, that Donegal went to. When Jim McGuinness came in with Donegal they were at a low ebb and he probably had to go to extremes with them. The challenge for him will be next year, when they’re top of the pile, to see can they give another few per cent — it’ll be interesting to see what he does.
“As for their mass defence, I’d say they felt they needed a structure that would ensure they were hard to beat, first, and then they could worry about playing football. This year they developed that a lot. When people spoke about them they spoke about the system, but they forgot Donegal had a lot of very good players — serious natural footballers who were very effective in the playing system.
“The challenge for Kerry is to come up with an antidote but that’ll be the enjoyment for me. We’ll be keeping an eye on Kerry traditions and doing it our own way. When it comes to the end of a game you might look to shut up shop, but we’ll still look to use the Kerry tradition as well, maybe playing a couple of different styles in the course of a game.”
Managing players he lined out alongside was “a consideration but not a big one” when mulling over the job.
“It would have been different if I’d shared the dressing room this year or last year, but I retired in 2007, I was out of it for a couple of years and then came in as a selector with Jack [O’Connor].”
The former Irish Examiner columnist, speaking to Weeshie Fogarty on Radio Kerry’s Terrace Talk programme last night, outlined his thinking in appointing his backroom team.
“I thought long and hard about it and I asked Mikey [Sheehy] and he was delighted, and so was I when he came on board. He’s a great addition — he’s a legend, obviously, and I thought it was good to have a link with that great Kerry team of the 70s and 80s — his ability to work with the forwards will be a great boost.
“With Diarmuid [Murphy] I thought continuity would be good and I was very impressed with him when I went in to help Jack last summer, that he was very sharp on the line. From working with different teams I know the importance of having someone who’s sharp on the line — there are a thousand guys who’ll be sharp in the pub but a guy who’s sharp in real time is invaluable — and he’s obviously good with goalkeepers.
“Cian O’Neill is the best in the country, as head of sports science in UL he’s at the cutting edge. He was with Mayo, Tipperary, Limerick and he’s also a football coach so he can help with that, so it’ll let me take a step back and look at the overall thing.”
Fitzmaurice added that he’d enjoyed writing for the Irish Examiner, adding that media relations was an issue he and his staff had discussed.
“We’ve nothing organised yet but it’s probably something we can improve on in Kerry all right. Some other counties have a very professional set-up in dealing with the media.
“I did about 15 interviews the day after I was interviewed [for the job]. It’s gone massive.”
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