Cooper thankful for Crokes’ strength amid rural club decline

Colm Cooper counts himself fortunate to be from a town in Kerry as rural clubs in the county battle for survival.

The Dr Crokes man fears clubs lose part of their identity in joining up with nearby outfits to make up amalgamations.

Having seen emigration ravage south and west Kerry, he is thankful to come from an urban area like Killarney.

“Incredibly so, and I’m coming from a town and numbers are invariably strong 99% of the time. I’m very fortunate to have that and I probably don’t appreciate it all the time.

“If you look at clubs now, Renard and places like that in South Kerry that might at times struggle to put out 15 players. From our own club, we’d be putting out two teams every weekend because we have the numbers.

“It’s very sad to see those clubs (in trouble) because they have very proud traditions and when it gets to the stage when they don’t have the numbers to fulfil games, they’d never like to see their club disbanded or go somewhere else, because it’s taken them so long to build it.”

The sidelined Kerry captain watched Dublin pummel Cork in the second half of Sunday’s Division 1 semi-final in Croke Park, but is hesitant to believe the All-Ireland champions will have it all their own way this summer.

He sees Cork as taking a lot from the defeat, but agreed Dublin are genuine favourites to lift the Sam Maguire Cup again. “They are probably a little bit ahead (of everyone) but I wouldn’t be convinced it’s a foregone conclusion whatsoever. I think Cork will have learned an awful lot from that game as well.

“Dublin were getting all the plaudits, and probably rightly so for the way they came back, but Cork will learn an awful lot from that in terms of the way they can play and looking at the mistakes they made. I’m convinced that Dubs are rightfully the favourites but I think there are definitely going to be a few tough days ahead of them in the Championship.

“There’s always a day or two when you could be beaten and that’s speaking from experience. We’ve been in that situation and who knows, with injuries, suspensions and things.”

Kerry head to Portugal tomorrow for a five-day training camp and Cooper believes the likes of the returning Kieran Donaghy, Declan O’Sullivan and Killian Young will take the most from it.

“I have always found it worthwhile, particularly last year, I missed a bit of the league and in that five or six days you can get nearly a month’s training done very quickly.”