Kildare a real danger to Kerry, insists Eamonn Fitzmaurice

We can thank US sport for “The Big Mo”. Kildare have it and Kerry manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice is well aware of it as Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC quarter-final joust with the Lilywhites in Croke Park looms.

The Kingdom boss believes momentum can take a team a long distance in championship football — and Kildare have generated more than a modicum of it in the last few weeks.

Fitzmaurice also stresses the Lilywhites possess a “fearlessness” heading into this clash with the reigning All Ireland champions.

“Kildare were a Division One side 15 months ago and, believe it or believe it not, looking at them last Saturday night (against Cork), they looked better than they were back then,” said Fitzmaurice.

“Sometimes in the league, if a few results go against you and if a few injuries go against you, it can be tough to get the bit of momentum back, but they have serious momentum now and when you have it like that fellas grow in confidence.”

He added: “I know within the Kildare camp there is no fear and they are probably saying ‘bring on Kerry’. They will be backing themselves and they are in a position where nobody is probably giving them a chance of winning maybe. But they will have a real go.

“A team who are in that kind of a situation, coming in after taking a big scalp, full of confidence, full of running, full of youth and then with kind of a fearlessness – that can be very dangerous as well.

“You can’t underestimate momentum. If you go back to 2009, when Kerry won the All Ireland through the Qualifiers. Kerry were very poor in the Munster championship that year, okay against Longford, Diarmuid Murphy saved our bacon in Tralee against Sligo, we didn’t play well in the first-half against Antrim — teams you mightn’t be saying were top tier opposition — and we came out after half-time up in Tullamore, kicked on, played well and then had Dublin the following weekend and won that game and it took off from there.

“So when you have momentum and you’re building and building — okay you can paint it anyway you want – but if you have momentum, you’re coming in with confidence.

“It wasn’t as if they fell over the line (against Cork); it wasn’t like they got a lucky goal in the end, a last minute goal or something like that – they played serious football. They played a lot of serious football, got a lot of very good scores. (They were) well-structured and worked very hard for each other. So all the ingredients if you were managing a team were there from your team the last day.

“Their form over the last couple of weeks has been very good. They’ll be dangerous opposition next weekend.”

The 2014 All Ireland-winning manager is keen to stress there has been and will be no complacency in the Kerry camp this week.

Now two-and-a-half years into his term as Kerry senior football manager, Fitzmaurice, 37, has superbly managed expectations in the Kingdom.

But managing a group of players against any semblance of complacency against a team whose confidence levels appear to soaring in an upwards trajectory offers the Lixnaw native a new challenge.

“You’d have to be a fool after looking at that game last Saturday night and you were taking them for granted.

“It was their performance, the manner of their performance and how impressive they were. You couldn’t but be impressed with the way they played last Saturday night…”

Even though Cork were totally at sea?

“They were…but look at us against Tipperary. Now that wasn’t what you would call a five-star performance. Tipperary played ok in the first-half but we saw afterwards what Tyrone did when Tipp weren’t at it. There definitely won’t be a danger of complacency, I can assure you.

“So I don’t think there is any need for me to be talking them up, there will be a good realisation out there of the quality that they are going to bring whereas if you were playing maybe one of the so-called lesser teams, it might be harder to get the lads zoomed in on it.”

Fitzmaurice is adamant Kerry need to bring their “A-game” to Croke Park. “I think there will be that awareness out there in the general public. In Kerry this week there won’t be any overconfidence. Everyone will be saying this is a game where we have to be very careful. We really have to bring our A-game, and, if we don’t, we’ll be beaten.

“I’ve said it before and it’s fairly black and white to me: If we play like we can play it will take a good team to beat us, but if we’re off against a team like Kildare, this time next week we won’t have to be worrying about any more press conferences.”