‘Wrong and unfair’: Peter Keane hits out at Covid breaches

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN: Kerry manager Peter Keane believes panels who breached level 5 Covid-19 restrictions put pressure on those counties who were abiding by the law. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Kerry manager Peter Keane has criticised the four football panels who were found to have breached level 5 Covid-19 restrictions.

Describing their actions as “unfair”, Keane took aim at Cork, Down, Dublin, and Monaghan for convening illegal training sessions earlier this year and believed the likes of Cork and Down’s actions in January put pressure on those counties who were abiding by the law.

“Look, we didn’t engage in training during the Government restrictions. We did a lot of stuff online; by God we did a lot of cycling online. I’d say we covered the Ring of Kerry a few times over, just to have the guys in and we probably found that the best way to be together was to be apart.

“I think what the other counties did was wrong. I think it was unfair. I think it was unfair on society in general. The view was that we were all in this together and, look, some of these counties breached the Covid guidelines and I don’t believe they should have.

“Did it bring pressure? In the early part, I think yes it did. We took a view down here that we weren’t going to do it, that we weren’t going to break the guidelines, we were going to try and look out for all of these people.

There was a good number of months that with my own mother I didn’t see her. We have to be conscious of all of these people that we were minding, vulnerable people. 

“So that put pressure if you do see or hear that other counties were doing something, it brings pressure because you might have players saying: ‘Jesus, why aren’t we doing this?’”

Keane wouldn’t say if he thought the loss of home advantage and the suspensions handed out to the four managers were sufficient.

“We probably felt we had additional responsibilities, so it was disappointing to see it and to see counties ignoring that. But, look, it’s not really for me to comment on why they did it and it’s not really for me to comment on the penalties or punishments applied.”

It was a more open Keane who presented himself to the media at yesterday afternoon’s pre-Allianz League press event, although the pain of losing to Cork last November was one subject which he didn’t expand on too much.

“We had massive ambition last year, we had gone to the final and a replay the previous year, we felt we were in good nick heading to Cork. It was a strange day and there were lots of learnings from it and there would be hurt there. It is trying to channel that hurt now going forward.”

He rejects the idea Kerry were too mindful about their rearguard in 2020. 

“I would not necessarily agree that we were defensively set up last year. I think a lot of that discussion came around the fact we had Brian Ó Beagloaoich playing at wing-forward but if you reverse back 13/14 months from that we played Brian Ó Beaglaoich at wing-forward in an All-Ireland semi-final and there was no perception then of not playing football with flair. I think we play football with flair where we can.”

Keane has brought in Cork adventurer Pat Falvey as a performance coach this season and hopes his achievement experiences can rub off on the players. 

“From my own and the management’s perspective, we are looking around all the time, we are always analysing and seeing what is going on in other sports and other teams and you can even look at industry in that respect.

“You take us in this country with five million people and we have had some unbelievable adventurers like (Ernest) Shackleton and (Tom) Crean, you look at someone like Pat who has climbed Everest twice from two different sides, managed to climb the Seven Summits twice and I am looking to see if he can bring something different in here. He has had plenty of conversations with the boys, plenty of one-to-one conversations with them.”

The Cahersiveen man says the priority over the next six weeks is avoiding injury, not retaining the Division 1 title. 

“You take us last year when we went out against Cork. Three fellas who had been involved in the previous year’s All-Ireland final were gone because they’d picked up knocks in the run-in. That was Paul Geaney and Adrian Spillane, and James O’Donoghue. So, you really can’t afford to pick up knocks.”