Marc Ó Sé ‘still well off’ playing return for Kerry

Kerry footballer Marc Ó Sé hasn’t ruled out skipping the entire league campaign to recover from a fractured coccyx.

The five-time All-Ireland medal-winner slipped on a concrete stairs last October, fracturing his coccyx bone in the process, and yesterday revealed he is “still well off playing football”.

Ó Sé and manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice have discussed the possibility of the corner-back sitting out the entire spring campaign and focusing instead on a summer return.

The 34-year old, however, expressed reservations at missing Kerry’s remaining six league fixtures for fear of losing his place to the “several young fellas champing at the bit”.

He said: “It’s very frustrating. Usually for a bone fracture to heal it takes about two months. It has been four months now, the difference with this is that it’s on your backside. You are sitting the whole time and you are driving the car a lot so it takes longer for it to heal as a result.

“I’d be hoping to be back to get some national league time, but this is a very rare kind of an injury for a footballer so it is hard to say how it is coming along and hard to say when I’ll actually be back.

“It is frustrating, especially when you see the boys coming back onto the field and training together. I’d always, I suppose, like to think I’d be fit, especially when January comes and the festive season is over. This is the first time now in my career that it has happened to me that I haven’t been able to get back with the lads. I suppose the fact that I am no spring chicken now, I’ll be 35 in a month or two, when I do get back it will certainly be catch-up for me.

“Eamonn is putting no pressure on me whatsoever, which is great. But I know myself it is in my best interests to get back with the team as soon as possible. There are young fellas there champing at the bit coming in, the likes of Pa Kilkenny coming in at corner-back, Mark Griffin, and you have a strong panel.”

Speaking at the launch of Comórtas Peile Páidí Ó Sé which takes place in Dingle from February 20-22, Ó Sé admitted his exclusion from the starting team for last year’s All-Ireland semi-final replay against Mayo did plant the seed of retirement.

“During that time when it happened you’d be thinking that alright, is this the beginning of the end. But I’ve always said I’d be honest with myself. I would be my own worst critic and I’d know if I was not myself. Certainly, I wasn’t myself at that time.

“I also think I wasn’t doing anything overly poor but at the same time I wasn’t driving out with the ball like I used to. I wasn’t my usual confident self either so from that point of view I can see why I was dropped, but I don’t think I could feel my body going back in any way so from that point of view, I think it’s in my interest to keep going.”

Meanwhile, on TV3’s Late Lunch Live yesterday, Colm Cooper named Ó Sé as one of the three toughest markers he has faced during his time with Kerry.

Cooper selected Mayo’s Keith Higgins and Cork’s Anthony Lynch as the opponents who have given him the sternest challenges.

But he also marvelled at the ability and versatility of Ó Sé, recalling many battles between the pair in Kerry training.

Pressed by Lucy Kennedy on the hot topic of the moment, the demands endured by inter-county players, Cooper admitted he marvelled at the efforts put in by team-mates with families or their own businesses to run.

“I’m single and I don’t have any side distractions. I’m not sure how those guys do it. It can be difficult to get out. You’re doing something five or six days a week. It’s difficult to socialise.

“Alcohol is off the table… My last summer holiday was when I was 17 years old. But you do it because you enjoy it. You love it.”