Kerry hope Cooper’s club focus pays dividends
An All-Ireland club victory is the one medal ‘Gooch’ is missing from his collection, and Fitzmaurice knows the importance of March 17’s final against Slaughtneil for the player and his club in Killarney.
Until then, the Kerry boss insists he doesn’t need to know Gooch’s inter-county intentions for 2017.
“Colm Cooper is focused on Crokes, I’m focused on Kerry. When he is finished with Crokes, we will talk about Kerry,” Fitzmaurice said in Tralee last night as he named two changes in the Kingdom side to play Roscommon in the Allianz League tomorrow.
“That’s always been the arrangement. I wanted to be able to give him a bit of space to be able to enjoy the club run. I had a feeling the way Crokes were going that they were going to be involved on March 17. That’s a medal he’s been trying to win for a long time — they were very close ten years ago against Crossmaglen. I felt for his own enjoyment and hopefully for us in the long term, it’d be better for him to concentrate on that, and enjoy that. We will have plenty of time to be talking about Kerry after that.”
Fitzmaurice knows the pressure is on from within and outside to snap a two-game losing league run. By last Monday evening, he said, he had put the poor performance of the Monaghan defeat behind him.
“I learned when I was playing, listening to stuff doesn’t help you. It’s better being single-minded and narrow in your focus. The criticism doesn’t bother me. I know when you’re winning everything is rosy in the garden, when you’re losing, you are wrong. I am very happy with the way the players are applying themselves in training, but our performance to date hasn’t been up to scratch. The Donegal game was good for the first two-thirds, we wouldn’t have been happy with the second half of the Mayo game, and last Sunday we weren’t satisfied at all.
“In terms of the big picture, I am happy where we are at but ultimately you need to be winning games. It doesn’t matter where you are, there will be hysterical reactions — when Dublin lost their first hurling game, they were written off and Ger Cunningham was under pressure, then they went down to Páirc Uí Rinn, beat Cork, and all bets were off.
“Kilkenny lose two matches and Brian Cody, despite what he has achieved, is being talked about. If people are going to be talking about Brian Cody, then I am under no illusions people are going to be giving out about me. I don’t hear it, it doesn’t bother me.”
Fitzmaurice will start Killian Young at full-back tomorrow at Dr Hyde Park and bring Paul Murphy back from the attack to wing-back. Mark Griffin loses out in defence, while Jonathan Lyne makes way for the returning Donnchadh Walsh up front.
Kerry will get “an absolute battle”, Fitzmaurice believes, one Kerry can’t hide from. “We didn’t perform against Monaghan, and we were all very disappointed, particularly in front of your home crowd. But we dealt with that during the week, and hopefully we’ve learned lessons from it.”
The Kerry boss said Kieran Donaghy is training one night a week with the squad, but is not expected to be involved in any of their Division 1 games.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
