Black card has big fan in Kerry’s Fitzgerald

He is part of a team — never mind a defence — that has yet to incur a black card this summer.

When that happens, as it most surely will this year or in the seasons ahead, maybe his opinion will change but Fionn Fitzgerald is resolute in his support of the new disciplinary stream.

“It’s two things. It’s improved the game for neutrals to watch because obviously everybody is there to watch good attacking football and it might allow it a little bit more and secondly it’s raised the standards of defending and defenders.

“You have to defend properly and I think it’s fantastic, to be honest with you. Even though I’m a defender, I’m in favour of the rule to a certain extent as long as it’s implemented quite well and up to now we haven’t been caught in any situations that have been grey areas.”

Yet Thomas Flynn’s goal against Kerry three weeks ago is already being held up as the poster score for the black card, running as he did 45 metres without so much as a shoulder being laid on him.

“You could have said maybe we were being naive or that we could have possibly taken somebody down if the black card wasn’t there, but I think the situation just happened so fast that I’m not sure did fellas know that. The black card has definitely made the football a little bit more open and a little bit more attacking-based for punters to watch, but it might have had an effect [in that case], I don’t know.”

What perhaps emphasised the error for Kerry was that their half-back line has not made a habit of falling out of position. Their discipline in keeping shape at the back has been regimental; their licence to bomb forward certainly nowhere near as great as Mayo’s men on the 40.

“At the moment that’s the way it probably looks,” agrees Fitzgerald, but with caveats.

“There’s different games, different days. I don’t think any two days this year we’ve played the exact same way, but maybe we haven’t attacked. When you have forwards as good as we have at the moment you don’t need to necessarily clog up their space and take away runs from the likes of them.

“I’d enjoy an auld sally up the field every so often too. It’s not about me or about individuals kicking a point, it’s very much about having a system or a structure. Not every time it’s a score, so you have to be in a position to defend or to have some sort of structure if it breaks down. But if the situation presents itself, absolutely there are backs there well able to go up and contribute to the attack.”

Fitzgerald has been in excellent form these last two games, his ability to break up Galway play a key component in Kerry’s victory last day out.

Just gone 24 and a masters graduate in sports performance from UL, he’s satiated his wanderlust having had a college placement in Whangarei, a spot just north of New Zealand’s capital Auckland where he worked with the national sports academy.

He also had the chance to see what the Waikato Chiefs got up to in what was a Super 14-winning season for them. On top of that, he was able to rehab a series of injuries in his four months there.

Last December, he spent a month in Dallas where he joined former Clare football trainer Michael Cahill in assisting a Friday Night Lights team. Gaelic football may be a professional past-time but all elements of sport and how success is achieved fascinates the Dr Crokes man.

Tactics too. He knows Sunday’s game is being looked at as a tonic to what might follow the following weekend but he’s making no promises.

“Absolutely, I think there might be a perception that the Donegal and Dublin game will be slightly different to our own.

“I think the way the game has gone now there’s going to be high intensity football on Sunday, but both teams have very good systems in place and are tactically quite strong.

“Ultimately, we do go out to play football, but free-flowing football… is there any such thing as free-flowing football anymore? I’m not really sure, but we’d like to think we play it in as best a way we can anyway.”