Changing of the guard in Kerry

AND then there was four.

On Tuesday morning Darran O’Sullivan announced his decision to step away from inter-county football, joining Kieran Donaghy, Donnchadh Walsh and Anthony Maher in retirement.

It’s a head-spinning number of retirements in the space of just a couple of weeks. We can’t remember anything quite like it for an inter-county squad – except possibly the early days of Brian Cuthbert’s tenure with the Cork senior footballers when a host of legends hung up their boots in a similar fashion.

Probably never before in the history of Kerry football has there been such a loss of institutional memory in such a short space of time. These guys were not bit-part players, they were key players all.

Fair enough none of them were regulars in the side this year – bar Donaghy who forced his way back into Éamonn Fitzmaurice’s plans over the course of the championship – but they still leave a big hole in the dressing room.

There are dangers associated with that – Cork have struggled for identity ever since – but there’s also huge opportunities. It frees up space for younger and hungrier players to come into the panel, it leaves room for other guys to step up to positions of leadership.

Much more so even than 2018, when seven players made their championship debuts, 2019 promises to be a new dawn for Kerry football. The Kingdom have a new manager and he has much closer a blank sheet with which to work than his predecessor.

It’s going to be fascinating to see what Peter Keane decides to draw on that blank sheet.