Fans out in the cold, but Fitzmaurice’s concern well-placed

At the time, it was that serious Eamonn Fitzmaurice felt the decision necessitated an open letter to Kerry supporters.

“As manager my job is to ensure that the team work in the best possible training environment,” he explained to the masses. “In recent years as the championship has become more and more competitive, the monitoring of training sessions has become very intense. It has, on occasions, become much more than harmless curiosity.

“The information that such scouting provides can make a difference. The new arrangements are designed to provide our players with the privacy and space to develop and improve over the coming months.”

All Kerry were doing was replicating what was going on elsewhere around the country, Donegal among them. But Fitzmaurice’s concern was well-placed. And the incident of reported spying at their training ahead of the meeting with Donegal confirmed that.

But at the time Terrace Talk presenter and The Kerryman columnist Weeshie Fogarty was one of those who disagreed with the call.

“I have since mellowed,” he laughs. “To be quite honest at the start, I and a lot of people were fairly upset. It was part and parcel of football life in Kerry for as long as we can remember. When they decided it, it was hard to come to grips with. Going up to the stadium had been a ritual for so many of us.”

That’s not to say Kerry was completely under lock and key last year. After beating Cork in the Munster final, Fitzmaurice took a thinly-veiled swipe at one ex-Kerry star for indicating on Twitter the previous Tuesday that a big surprise was on the cards in team selection. It turned out to be the omission of Kieran Donaghy.

Since then, it’s been akin to Fort Knox, the only inclination before last night’s team naming Marc Ó Sé’s expected recall for Shane Enright.

Donegal, on the other hand, never had a tradition of taking in training so when Jim McGuinness introduced it in 2011 few cared.

“Most people went along with it,” said Highland Radio and Donegal Democrat journalist Tom Comack. “There were a couple of older men who would have always went to training sessions and they were annoyed. But there was no major outcry. The reality is until we were successful nobody was interested! By the time people did, they were happy enough with being successful.”

As McGuinness said recently, “Nobody knows what goes on behind anyone else’s dressing room door.” Not prying eyes from outside the county nor the locals.

“Shrewd Kerry observers would come away and know the type of football they were going to play the next game,” says Fogarty.

“Donaghy might be at full-forward or on the wing, a fella might be yielding to his leg or his knee. Now there could be players going into next Sunday and they mightn’t be 100% and nobody knows.”