Kerry could release Donaghy to roam out the field, says Fitzmaurice

KIERAN DONAGHY might be named at full-forward for Kerry in this weekend’s All-Ireland quarter-final with Cavan, but his manager isn’t ruling out a shift at midfield for the big man.

Kerry boss Eamonn Fitzmaurice says he considered a stint in the middle of the field for Donaghy in the Munster final win over Cork.

“Maybe we should have put him straight on at midfield [against Cork] instead of putting him on at full forward and then bringing him out to midfield.

“I felt at the time that if we did that we might be slightly inviting Cork on to ourselves.”

That last championship outing has been on Kerry minds lately.

“We knew Cork were going to come at us in the second-half,” said Fitzmaurice.

“We’d have preferred to have weathered the storm a bit better, but at the end of the day there is huge context in it.

“We learned an awful lot out of it. Cork learned a lot out of too. Overall we were happy we won the game but with big improvements to make. Any false sense of security we might have had from a comfortable win definitely wasn’t there by the end of the game because we were hanging on.

“It took a great save from Brendan Kealy in the 70th minute to keep us ahead. I said it in the press conference after the game that in the long run, from a management point of view, it couldn’t have been better. We won the game but we left with plenty to improve on.”

Fitzmaurice and his backroom team didn’t know their opponents until Sunday evening, which brings its own challenges in terms of preparation.

“The hardest part is probably getting the video analysis done,” said Fitzmaurice. “I used to do all the video analysis for Jack [O’Connor] in the past and that week was a nightmare week because if you have the stuff on SkyPlus fair enough, but if you were trying to get footage, particularly from some of the qualifier games, it was very hard.

“When you did get it, just from a practical point of view, it was toward the end of the week so you were working night and day trying to get the stuff clipped and the lads were only seeing it the Saturday before the game. So it isn’t ideal from that point of view.

“Paudie McCarthy is doing the video analysis for me now and the fact that he is full time at it means he’d have it a bit more organised, but at the same time that is the hardest part of it.

“In terms of the rest of it, I don’t think it is a big deal really. I feel that for ourselves, particularly after the last 20 minutes of the Munster final, we just needed to focus on ourselves and get ourselves right over the following few weeks.

“Then we have a week to get tuned into our opposition [for the quarter-final]. But it’s not ideal, say, that we beat Cork and Cork knew they were playing the winners of Galway and Armagh and could go to that game with a particular focus. Dublin beat Meath, and Meath likewise could go to see Tyrone against Kildare, whereas Dublin and ourselves were in a vacuum a week before our quarter-finals.

“This time around, because of the way the Munster final finished, it wasn’t really a factor for us because we had enough to be doing just concentrating on ourselves really.”

Kerry are going through the front door this year, as it were, but Fitzmaurice doesn’t think the scenic route is without some advantages.

“You are going to Croke Park well tuned in. Whereas if you are beaten in a [provincial] semi-final and have to play three extra games, fatigue can become a factor on the fourth weekend.”