Kerry captaincy: Peter Keane gets call on replacement skipper
The Kerry senior football champions no longer have a say in who captains the county in the event of the player they nominated failing to make the team on match-day.
Delegates were informed at Monday’s board meeting that if the footballer nominated by the county championship-winning club or division is omitted from the starting 15 for a league or championship fixture, then the decision as to who captains Kerry for that particular game is made by management.
Moreover, management are under no obligation to choose another player from that county championship-winning club or division.
County secretary Peter Twiss said this had always been Kerry policy, but explained it had become “loose” over the past 10 years and needed to be tidied up.
Ahead of the 2019 inter-county season, Dr Crokes nominated Gavin White as Kerry captain.
It was claimed by a delegate at Monday’s meeting that the Killarney club was also requested by the board to nominate an alternative or vice-captain, should the half-back fail to make the team on any given day, directly contravening the policy the executive was now looking to reaffirm.
“What has happened over the past 10 years is that it has gotten a little bit loose. We had clubs nominating vice-captains,” said Twiss.
Now is probably the time to nip this in the bud. It is a county board policy.
Delegates at Monday’s meeting voted to uphold the long-standing tradition of the senior county champions selecting the Kerry football captain.
County chairman Tim Murphy, speaking to the after the meeting, said it was important to achieve clarification on who picked the captain in the event of the nominated captain not being included in the team for a particular game.
Going forward, the county champions shall have the power to nominate “one candidate and one candidate only” - the captain at the beginning of the year.
If, however, the captain was not dropped on form but suffered a “season-ending injury”, “the chairperson, the management, and the previous year’s county champions would consult as to who would be the replacement”.
“We are reinforcing what was always the policy, but something that has probably drifted a little bit in the last number of years,” said Murphy.
“It has become diluted from what it was intended for".
A key factor in the defeat of the Beaufort motion to change the system of how Kerry appoints its captain was opposition of delegates from hurling backgrounds who did not like the idea of an outside manager taking the power from clubs to select the hurling captain.
Kerry U20 football manager John Sugrue believes leaving the decision to the county champions can be “problematic”.
He doesn’t, however, have any major grievances with the status quo being maintained. Sugrue’s U20 captain will be nominated last year’s county U21 champions East Kerry.
“I think you could argue for both sides ..., I don’t have a major problem with it.
“Personally, I think [the senior captaincy] will rest easy enough on David [Clifford]. There is no discussion about any other county captain, but for some reason in Kerry it seems to draw huge attention. And I think it’s from those outside looking in.”
Murphy said he will not revisit the issue during his tenure as chairman, adding that Peter Keane’s management team felt strongly enough about the process to make their views known.
It needs to be said that they would see themselves as being very traditionalist in outlook, but they felt the system needed to be changed.
“This [issue] has been bandied about for the last two years. The Beaufort motion has certainly brought closure in terms of where we sit with it. There is nothing to stop this being revisited in future. That is up to a future executive or future management team.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
