Colm Cooper and Paul Galvin back to bolster Kerry’s safety bid

Colm Cooper and Paul Galvin will add firepower to Kerry’s bid to avoid relegation from Division One of the Allianz League this Sunday.

The multiple All-Ireland winners will be available to Eamonn Fitzmaurice for the first time in almost 18 months against Tyrone in Omagh, with the manager insisting ‘we’re not bringing them north for the ride’.

“They are both available. We would not be taking them if they were not, because there are other lads losing out that have been in the squad,” said Fitzmaurice last night. “So depending on the type of game, depending on what we need, you could see one or both of them for sure.”

Fitzmaurice, who believes the current outcry about the defensive nature of football is exaggerated, insists there is no risk in throwing Cooper back into the rigours of inter-county football without a club game under his belt.

“There is no risk with Colm. He has an awful lot of work done. We have held off all along with him, as long as possible, until he was right, and we were not going to push him into action until he was right. So he is ready to go, medically he is perfect. Obviously, in an ideal world you would have loved to see him get a couple of club games under his belt, but that did not happen. But when the league finishes up, whether it is this Sunday or down the line, he will have a load of club activity, which will give him a chance to play a lot of competitive football.

On Paul Galvin, who returns to the Kingdom after 14 months out, Fitzmaurice added: “Paul is coming from a different angle, but we feel he is ready too so both are on the bench on Sunday and ready to come on and play their part if needed.”

Fitzmaurice also claimed that there is a media-driven agenda fueling the debate on the current state of the game. “Sure we would all like to see good open football in every game you play, but that’s not the reality in the real world. There is maybe a problem where some teams are going too defensive. But I do think it is exaggerated by an element of the media driving an agenda.

“There are ‘talking heads’ who are trying to make names for themselves. I think with a lot of these things, television comes into it. There have always been good games and bad games, going back the years, especially during the league when teams are at different stages of fitness, but not as many games were on television back then.

“A lot of the experts are sitting on their couch for a weekend, going from game to game and then they spend the week giving out about it afterwards. If you go through the league this year, there have been plenty of very good games, there have been some bad games and there have been some atrocious games, there is no doubt about that.”

Fitzmaurice did add, though: “Possibly down the line, they are going to have to look at rule changes and everything else. But that’s all pie in the sky at the moment. We are halfway through the year, there are not going to be any changes in the Championship this year, so it’s just a matter of getting on with it.

“I feel you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. People have been giving out about Jim Gavin for six months, because they claim Dublin did not have a Plan B against Donegal in the All-Ireland semi-final, and that they were naïve. We also have come in for a share of criticism, for the way we played in the final, because we took a different approach.

“That’s one of those things where you are involved in it, you are concentrating on your own team, and getting your own team right. If you look at the championship last year, we had two very good games with Mayo – high scoring. We had a good game with Galway, we had a good game with Cork, we had a good game with Clare. I would not go along with the theory that Gaelic football is on its death bed – not at all.”