Éamonn Fitzmaurice focus on Donegal but 2020 vision shapes Kerry thinking

The interview with Éamonn Fitzmaurice wasn’t 40 seconds old when the Kerry manager first made reference to a “three-year plan”.

Talk of three-year plans would crop up on a few more occasions during the conversation, but with the first two mentions coming unprompted, it was a clear sign of Fitzmaurice’s desire to shape the narrative surrounding his team in a certain light, as the 2018 season kicks into action.

Back in 2015, an influx of youth into the Waterford hurling panel resulted in a significant shift in how the Déise were perceived.

Manager Derek McGrath was more than happy to go along with the assertion they were building for the future.

No Kerry manager will ever get away with the line of building for the future so it is doubtful if three-year plans will wash with an impatient Kerry public.

What we do know is that the Kerry manager is without 19 players for the opening rounds of their league campaign. Among that group of absentees are 14 players who featured during last year’s championship. From the team which started the replay defeat to Mayo last August, Tadhg Morley, Killian Young, Peter Crowley, Tom O’Sullivan, David Moran, Donnchadh Walsh, Johnny Buckley, and Kieran Donaghy are unavailable for Sunday’s visit of Donegal.

What we also know is that David Clifford is the latest in a growing line of minor medal winners to join the senior set-up. The 2016 All-Ireland minor-winning captain Sean O’Shea is beginning his first full season with the seniors having been drafted in after last year’s U21 campaign. Dingle’s Matthew Flaherty is in there, as is Cormac Coffey. There’s plenty more who cut their teeth under Jack O’Connor in 2014 and 2015.

Sean O’Shea

“When you are committing to a three-year plan, you have to experiment and you have to give players their head. We are very conscious of that,” Fitzmaurice stressed.

When asked for more specific detail on the blueprint up to 2020, the Kerry manager says it is a roadmap for the development of players who have worn the green and gold at underage level in recent years.

“The three-year plan is more of a whole county, top to bottom, development squads to the senior squad [plan]. What is driving it is that Currans is now available to us. There is a centre of excellence there so you want to have a plan. It is better to have a plan than to not have a plan.

“I don’t want to get bogged down in three-year plans. We are thinking about the Donegal game and developing the squad throughout the league to be as competitive as we possibly can come championship. That is the same as every year. It is the same as it was in 2013.

“It is important for the county to have a plan to develop all these players. It would be careless and negligent if there wasn’t such a plan in place, to have those structures to help those players who have been successful at minor level, but not U21 level, which is usually the provider for the senior team. We have to have a plan to develop those players. That is a positive thing. I don’t think it is something to be threatened by, to be hiding behind.”

And what of David Clifford, the Fossa teenager to make his senior debut in the coming weeks?

David Clifford

“He’s come in, kept his head down, worked hard, everything you’d expect from a new player coming in. We can’t ask any more from him. He’ll get his chance during the national league and we’re all looking forward to seeing it. There has to be patience with him. He is not yet 19. He is a young man who has the world at his feet. He is very level-headed. The public need to be patient. We as a management need to be patient. He needs to be patient himself.

“With the younger lads, you have to wait and see how they do in competition. That is when the excitement will really start to build for everyone.”

The league champions have followed through with All-Ireland success on eight occasions since 2003.

Fitzmaurice is unsure if this correlation will continue to manifest itself with the onset of the Super 8s. He does, however, believe the change in championship structure will be a positive in terms of mental freshness.

“When you have a long season, you have lads going in different directions and it is a challenge. Funnily enough, the challenge is when there is a lot of training going on during the summer and not a lot of games. That is where the mental bluntness can come from. If we can do our business and get into the Super 8s, you’ll have games throughout that period and you’d hope that will help that.”