Gooch loss means longer odds and shorter season

Strange as it might seem, it’s difficult to be hyperbolic about the impact of Colm Cooper’s injury on Kerry’s 2014 season.

Monumental. Crucifying. Immense. Take your pick of the adjectives and add another one. Or seven.

Forget the retirements of Tomás Ó Sé, Eoin Brosnan and more recently Paul Galvin — the absence of Cooper on its very own is a criminally large burden for any team to bear.

Here is the most talented footballer of his generation who his Dr Crokes club-mate and Kerry chairman Patrick O’Sullivan rightly queried in December should have been acknowledged as a player of the year by this stage of his career. But placed in the context of this being a critical stage of Kerry’s development, Cooper’s injury is the very last thing Eamonn Fitzmaurice would have wanted. From June to September, he had hoped his captain would be the fulcrum of the attack.

For a player who had been heavily criticised for his adaptation to the new centre-forward role last summer, Cooper gave one of the most complete halves of football ever seen by a No 11 in last September’s All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin. The defeat was hard to stomach but his comfort in the position augured well for 2014.

Cognisant of the impact of such a setback as they were of the publicity surrounding it, the bookmakers reacted to the news of the pending knee surgery by stretching Kerry’s All-Ireland odds.

Who could blame them? This season will be deemed a success for Kerry should they again reach the last four.

Everything must now be reassessed. It’s no longer Cork who are being pitied. It’s still early days but they look capable of absorbing the six retirements and unavailability of Ciarán Sheehan.

But can Kerry cope without Cooper, and if their neighbours can endure the loss of half a dozen or more players what does that say about them? Or does it tell more of Cooper? Not to the same extent as Dr Crokes but more and more Kerry players had grown to revere him. When Kerry lost to Dublin in the 2011 final, it was letting captain Cooper aside from the personal pain that hurt them most.

Fitzmaurice last month said Cooper had another five seasons of inter-county football in him. With 76 Championship appearances for Kerry, Tomás Ó Sé’s all-time record of 88 would have also been in his crosshairs. One has been robbed of him. For the same reasons, three were taken from Colm O’Neill and David Moran was deprived of two. But that will provide scant consolation for Cooper as he contemplates the first major injury of his career.

It will mean just as little to Kerry too as they look forward to a year without their leader in name and nature. When Jack O’Connor (in 2006) compared the county’s one year without an All-Ireland title to Mayo’s 55, not everyone could appreciate his reasoning. The same can’t be said now for the magnitude of Cooper’s injury. All understand. The wealth of sympathy extended to Cooper on social media from outside the county yesterday and evening illustrated the high esteem in which the eight-time All Star is held.

By the same token, people also feel sorry for Kerry. Perhaps they should be but it makes it no less strange.