I’VE ALWAYS BACKED MYSELF
Self-assured as a player, Fitzmaurice carried that belief into management even after a shaky start
BEFORE his cult status was such that a giant-size image of his face featured amongst the banners in the crowd at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, Marty Morrissey’s roving reports have been a staple part of RTÉ’s diet of sports coverage.
When Páidí Ó Sé wanted to give a state of the nation address from Kerry’s team holiday in South Africa back in the winter of 2003 to re-interpret what he meant by describing the county’s supporters as the ‘roughest type of f**king animals you could meet,’ Morrissey just happened to be on holidays in the same part of the world. RTÉ’s man on the ground sourced a TV crew, prompting the Kerry manager’s famous line in which he quoted himself in the same sentence as the world’s pre-eminent political and human rights activist. ‘No more than that man out there on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela,’ he said of the prospect of stepping down.
No wonder Donnchadh Walsh said that the players knew things must be bad when Morrissey was dispatched down south for a special report in the spring of 2013.
Éamonn Fitzmaurice was only washing his face in the job as senior manager in those early months of the year as Kerry lurched from one unfortunate National League milestone to the next.
Scoreless for the entire second half in a 0-15 to 1-6 round one defeat by Mayo in Castlebar. Reduced to a pitiful four points in a 1-11 to 0-4 defeat by Dublin in Fitzgerald Stadium. Goalless again in round three as Cavan import Seanie Johnston led the Kildare charge in a 2-8 to 0-12 defeat. By the time Donegal inflicted a 1-12 to 0-6 defeat in Ballybofey, Kerry were on the verge of a fullblown crisis – or so the word went.
Except they weren’t. Not within the four walls of the dressing room, anyhow. Fitzmaurice maintained a zen calmness that can be found in the eye of a tornado.
‘I wasn’t worried because I knew what we were doing was right, I trusted the people around me,’ he explains. ‘We were changing the way we trained and were down a lot of experienced players. When you try new things, it can come back to bite you.
‘The first four games we had were Mayo away, Dublin at home, Kildare away, Donegal away – that was a fairly tough start to get. We were unlucky we didn’t get something out of the Kildare game. We had shots cleared off the line, every kind of a thing that day.
‘The only thing was I guess I was a bit naive to the standard, how high the standard was in Division 1. That caught me a bit. But there was no panic as to what we were doing. Even if we’d gone to Division 2 I was going to stick to what I was at and that was it.’
He’s not bluffing either, hindsight being a wonderful thing. Those in and around the camp will echo the same sentiments. Fitzmaurice might have dipped his toes quickly in senior management at just 36 years of age, after a typically medal-laden career, but he has always been imperturbable by nature.
Hard-nosed and confident in his own ability, whether as a player or behind the whitewash.
From the off, he knew what he wanted to underpin his tenure.
‘The big thing when I started out and it was a thing I was determined to do – I knew I was going to make mistakes, hundreds of mistakes, but I was going to make my own mistakes. If I lasted a year, or however long I lasted, it was going to be on my terms.
‘And I wasn’t going to be there after leaving the job saying “Why didn’t I trust my instincts? Why didn’t I do this or that?” I was going to do it my way, rightly or wrongly.’
EIGHTEEN months after Morrissey’s piece to camera about the problems with Kerry football, Fitzmaurice’s team were All-Ireland champions. ‘I was hoping we’d be champions 12 months earlier,’ he says, not buying any suggestion that his team were ahead of schedule. ‘We’d a right go at it in 2013 as well. Dublin were just better than us in the semi-final. It was where I wanted to get. Ultimately, if I was manager of Kerry and my term had finished and I hadn’t won an All-Ireland I’d view myself as not having succeeded. I wanted to win an All-Ireland and it was an important thing to get done. Thankfully we did it in 2014 but we want more now.’
Given Dublin’s invincible status since, he’s asked if that achievement looks better with the passing of time, rather than worse. ‘I don’t look at it that way. When you’re involved in something you don’t look back. When I was involved in 2014 and we won we were looking to 2015 to see how we could improve as a group. We didn’t improve enough and were caught in the All-Ireland final. Didn’t play well. You analyse that and try and move on to 2016.
‘Maybe when you finish up you question, “Was it enough? Did you do enough?”’
Ultimately, it’s about leaving Kerry football in a better place.
‘Absolutely. That’s the bottom, basic aim that you want. I’m only a person that’s here for a while. You pass it onto the next person and you want to pass on something that’s in a better place.’
Nobody is suggesting now the future isn’t bright, no matter what the result against Dublin in this afternoon’s All-Ireland semi-final. Even if defeat would likely prompt a
I talk to lads when they are leaving the panel, but I don’t enjoy it
string of high-profile retirements from the 30 somethings.
The panel shake-up after a onesided League final defeat against the same opposition accelerated the rebuilding process.
‘There comes a time when you have to give the younger lads their head,’ he says. ‘It’s the law of the jungle. The freshness that the younger lads brought in around the place has been very good.
‘I talk to lads who are leaving the panel, I ring them or meet them and explain my thoughts. It’s one of the very few aspects of the Kerry job that I don’t enjoy, but it is part of the job. Without failure, I can say that every player I’ve had has given me every possible commitment. You admire the honesty of their endeavour and then you have to tell them you are bringing in someone else. It’s part of the job and you have to do it.’
He agrees that it’s hardly a co-incidence that the four most attackminded teams in the last eight made the semi-finals. In fact, he believes resistance is coming to the modern trend of counties putting faith in overly defensive systems.
‘Defensive football, complete blanket defence, will get you so far – but it won’t win you an All-Ireland. I think there is a realisation now.
‘Whereas there was an element of surprise in it early, I think teams are comfortable dealing with it now. I’d say maybe there’s a bit of a counterrevolution on the way.
‘Don’t get me wrong, all teams left in the Championship are strong defensively when they don’t have the ball. And you have to be strong defensively. But the teams that are there are ambitious with the ball. They want to go and score.
‘Teams are realising bit by bit that a blanket defence will get you so far, but when you get to Croke Park it will be exposed. It will be exposed in the latter stages of the Championship. Especially when [former Donegal manager] Jim McGuinness took it to the next level in 2012, and they were so good counter-attacking as well, it took teams a while to get to grips with it. Most teams now can get to grips with it and play their own game as well.’
Dublin and Kerry are two of those who can shape-shift depending on the need in any given day.
A Kerry victory and RTÉ can expect to be sending Marty Morrissey to Killarney for the All-Ireland press night.
Teams are realising that the blanket defence will get you so far