Kerry's exhaustion crux: someone will have to take a look at it, says Jack O'Connor

The All-Ireland champions will be down around a dozen potential starters for their League opener and it's not down to their Croke Park run to July

Kerry manager Jack O'Connor: 'You have to give lads time off to recover mentally and physically'. Pic: Michael P Ryan/Sportsfile

Like handing the captaincy to the county champions, the divisional championships are part of Kerry's football heritage. December's North Kerry final, the battle for the Jack Murphy Cup in South Kerry and the O'Donoghue Cup in East Kerry.

But more and more the sense is that, going forward, they may be won and lost without the Kingdom's star turns. 

Many of Kerry's All-Ireland winners returned to county and then divisional championship and Kerry manager Jack O'Connor is certain the load brings with it a physical and psychological cost.

He's been around long enough to know tradition dies hard in the Kingdom. 

That's why he insisted Saturday  "I am not going to address that question" when it was put to him that the time is coming when Kerry players won't feature in the end of year divisionals.

He was discussing the consequences of a long campaign for his Kerry players and the number of them unavailable still for next weekend's start of the 2026 League.

"We will give the (Dingle and Gaeltacht) All-Ireland club campaign players a bit of time off, mentally as well as physically they will need that.

"In Kerry, the problem isn’t even the All-Ireland but the amount of football these lads have to play when they come back - three championships most of them. That takes its toll. Fellas like Declan O’Sullivan had to retire when he was 30 and he was a product of that system where he was with Kerry, then South Kerry, then Dromid into December.

"That takes its toll," O'Connor said, "you have to give lads time off to recover mentally and physically. When we are looking at players, we judge it on the basis of what sort of campaigns fellas have had. Some have shorter ones and that’s fine, they can come back earlier.

"It’s not someone like me that will sort out this issue, I don’t know what the answer is, but all I know is that players can’t keep playing all year around, and that is was you’re demanding. They are amateur players - even professional footballers get time off. 

"How can we expect them to function if our players don’t get some time off? I am not even going to address it but somebody down the line will have to take a look at it."

O'Connor added that Kerry "wouldn't be putting too much pressure on 20-year-old prospect Tomas Kennedy, as the stop up to senior is "really big". 

But there are hopeful signs there.

Kerry look like being without eight or nine Dingle and Gaeltacht players, Graham O'Sullivan, Gavin White, Paudie Clifford, Diarmuid O'Connor and possibly Mark O'Shea ad Paul Murphy for their League opener with Roscommon.