Anthony Maher set for Kerry return after seven-month injury lay-off
The Kerry midfielder underwent surgery on his hip during the off-season and has not played for the county since last September’s All-Ireland defeat to Dublin.
Maher trained with the Kerry team during last week’s pre-championship camp at Surrey Sports Park, the home of Harlequins Rugby, and then played half an hour for his native Duagh during their Division 5 league fixture against Cromane on Sunday afternoon – this first-half appearance marked his return inside the whitewash since the 2015 All-Ireland final.
James O’Donoghue, meanwhile, will miss the county’s Munster championship opener at home to Clare on Sunday as he nears the end of his six-month recovery following shoulder surgery last winter. Manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice expects O’Donoghue to return to training the week after the Clare game and also confirmed Johnny Buckley, Denis Daly and Brendan O’Sullivan are ruled out through injury for the visit of Colm Collins’ side.
“We are delighted with where he is at,” said Fitzmaurice of Maher’s fitness.
“The week before we went away [to Surrey], he played both evenings at training. The week we were away, he did a session a day which was the plan for him. The recovery was slow, but that was to be expected with the nature of the injury.
“From Anthony’s point of view then, when you get to a certain point, you just want to be on the pitch and as his return to play date was getting closer, he was a bit further away that he thought he should be. But it came together very quickly in the end.”
Commenting on James O’Donoghue’s recovery, Fitzmaurice added: “We hope he will be back into full contact the week after the Clare game. We had planned for him to play a county league game this weekend coming, but Legion’s game against Crokes isn’t going ahead. We will see where he is at next week. Johnny [Buckley] had a procedure on his knee. He made great strides last week, but is a bit away still.”
The Kerry boss said the decision not to return to the Amendoeira Golf Resort on Portugal’s Algarve for this year’s pre-championship camp came from management’s desire to freshen up preparations ahead of the summer.
“If we had gone to that particular venue in Portugal, it would have been the sixth time for some of the lads over there in the last six or seven years.
“We just felt we needed to change it up. I kept it tight (in terms of secrecy) because it is a pre-championship training camp in a public facility and I just wanted it to be private. There is a big Irish community in England and I didn’t want it to turn into a circus.”
He also confirmed Brian Ó Beaglaoich, Barry O’Sullivan, Tom Sullivan, Mark O’Connor, Killian Spillane, Jason Foley, Tadhg Morley, Gavin Crowley, Micheál Burns, Gavin White and Andrew Barry have been training with the panel since the conclusion of the league in late April.
