Question: Name the two Kerry players who've started every League and Championship game of 2026?
GO-TO GUYS: Who does Kerrys manager Jack O'Connor always pick? Pic: ©INPHO/James Crombie
Green and gold thinking caps on, it is question time.
Such was the absolute epidemic of injuries to visit the Kerry dressing-room this year, only two outfield players have started all 14 League and Championship games to date.
Who are they? If you’re struggling, a hint is that they come from the same line of the field. These two ever-present pillars have been stood beside one another since the first Sunday below in Killarney on January 25.
That clue should narrow it right down, and for those who haven’t already proved themselves clued-in Kerry observers, the answer is Jason Foley and Dylan Casey.
The likelihood is you managed to identify Foley, but not his corner-back colleague. Understandable, to an extent. Foley is long established in the Kerry line-up. Such consistency of selection is a given. Casey, on the other hand, is only recently established. It’s only in the past year that first-team regular has been scratched onto his nameplate.
Having been promoted amid a slight defensive redraw for last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final against Armagh, he has not been out of the team since. Sunday’s semi-final would be his 18th successive start.
“The competition for places in Kerry is huge. It's all about experience really and just knowing that you're good enough in certain situations,” said the 25-year-old this week.
“There's a lot of learning, particularly in my four years since I started out in 2022. You're going to have bad days more than good days, and it's about learning from them. It's just developing as a player and becoming more experienced in dealing with particular situations.”
Those learning days are not exclusive to League and Championship outings. When the Clifford brothers and Dylan Geaney are your company for in-house games, there’s as much schooling of a Tuesday evening in an empty Fitzgerald Stadium as there is at a close-to-capacity Croke Park in June and July.
“We're blessed in this county with tremendous forwards. There's a list of 10 or 12 fellas that are involved with Kerry, but there's also a shot of fellas that aren't involved with Kerry, that are playing club games, that are just as good. We're blessed in this county that our defenders are road-tested regardless of the time of year.
“But it's hugely influential being able to mark those lads in training because if you're able to mark the best forwards that we have, then you'll go a long way to being okay in games.”
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Casey’s ever-presence in 2026 is also slightly head-turning for the fact that he was late back into Jack’s set-up for the season still running. The amount of pre-season work banked before the Roscommon League opener was miniscule.
Last October, himself and the girlfriend packed the bags for three months in South America. Mind you, he wasn’t two weeks landed when he found himself scrambling for a flight home to line out for an Austin Stacks side that had progressed to the county final in his absence.
“I rang Darragh [Long, Stacks manager] because there was no way in the world I was going to stay in Columbia and watch Stacks in a county final. I'd say the full-time whistle in the semi-final was gone ten minutes and I'd already tried to source the way home,” he recalled.
“I spent 27 hours trying to get home, across five flights. I managed to get home and train on the Wednesday beforehand. Unfortunately, it didn't go our way. Dingle went on to win the All-Ireland and they were tremendous all year. But I wouldn't change it for anything really, coming home for the county final.
“I was actually only a week and a half or two weeks into the travelling at that point. We lost the county final on the Sunday, and I was climbing Machu Picchu the following Wednesday, so I was over in Peru within 72 hours of the final whistle.”
In a week where his manager again bemoaned the demands put on Kerry players when returning to their clubs from August onwards and the three local championships they are asked to play, Casey, who works as a quantity surveyor for PST Sport, saw the sensibility in the football switch-off he afforded himself last winter.
“It was a relatively long year the previous year with Stacks, where thankfully we managed to get out of intermediate in Kerry and had a good run in the All-Ireland series. It just meant it was fed into another year, and it was at that point that I was kind of like, I need to get some bit of a break.
“I always had it in my mind to do a bit of travelling. I decided to go away with my girlfriend and did my own bit of training for the three months I was away because I knew once I came back, I'd have no hope with Jack if I was back in poor shape.
“It was a mental switch off more than anything, not having to worry about being at any given place at any given time and struggling in the depths of winter here when it's dark at 5pm and obviously weather conditions aren't hectic versus being in, off the top of my head, I can remember in Brazil running in 32-degree heat on the side of the field.”
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