Ciarán Whelan backs Brian Fenton to handle toughest challenge

Ciarán Whelan believes Brian Fenton is facing into the biggest challenge of his career this summer, but one he is eminently capable of meeting.

Fenton arrived on the inter-county scene in the spring of 2015, seemingly fully-formed as a footballer and needing little or no time to adapt. Man of the match in that year’s All-Ireland final, he followed it up with a series of superb displays in the Dublin engine room in 2016.

The midfielder’s first defeat with the county wasn’t stamped until this season’s league final against Kerry and Jack Barry did an effective job in neutralising the input of the Raheny man who had also been kept relatively quiet when the sides met a month before in Austin Stack Park, Tralee.