Jack O'Connor: 'We haven’t done any heavy metal training'

Kerry manager Jack O'Connor poses for a photograph with supporters after the Allianz Football League Division 1 win over Monaghan at Inniskeen Grattans GAA Club 

'Final' is a banned word for Jack O’Connor but a third win on the bounce has pushed Kerry closer to a third consecutive Division 1 title.

O’Connor won’t hear any of such talk, though, and says he isn’t so sure an extra game in April would suit his team. 

Although they don’t face Cork in a Munster semi-final until May 7, he revealed Kerry have yet to do “heavy metal training”.

“It’s hard to know (if the extra game is positive) because we need a spell as well to do a bit of training. We haven’t done any heavy metal training so we’d like to have a bit of a gap for some training. You can argue for and against it.

“I won’t be talking about any final, I’d just be taking it a game at a time. We’re just hoping to rotate the panel and it was good to give newer fellas… Graham O’Sullivan got a run-out. It was great to give a start to Tony Brosnan, he’s a very exciting young player and has threatened many times in the past to explode on the scene but to come up here and kick four great scores is great going.” 

Competition for places in the team and panel will ramp up in the coming weeks as more players return from injury. “Everybody thinks we’re at full strength but we’re not, really,” said O’Connor. “We have a few injuries in the half-back line coming into today — Paul Murphy, Mike Breen and Gavin White and they’re three big players. David Moran and Joe O’Connor, Stefan Okunbor around the middle of the field. We have about six, maybe more players to come back into the reckoning. We’ll need them all because particularly at the end of the league three games in three weeks is going to be hectic."