Can O’Mahony do a Fitzmaurice?

ATURATED, sodden, miserable, that’s the type of afternoon it was in Austin Stack Park. Dark and dank and for one pocket of north Kerry absolutely glorious.

On a day for hard men and hard football Feale Rangers stepped up to the mark and upset the odds dramatically. Everything conspired to make it the most satisfying victory. The opposition, their pedigree, their style of football. This was a true clash of cultures and styles. The stylists versus the utilitarians.

There in the middle of it all, the man of the match, the driving force was Eamonn Fitzmaurice. He was Feale Rangers made manifest in that County Final. Without him the victory simply would not have been possible and not just because of the effective job he did on Declan O’Sullivan that day.

Through-out the entire campaign – at the beginning of which few gave Johnny Mulvihill’s side much of a chance of success – the Finuge man was the key figure on the pitch and a key one off it.

Johnny Mulvihill, Christy Kileen and Jerome Stack were absolutely central obviously in developing the conditions for success than season, but even then you could see Fitzmaurice’s capacity to inspire, to lead.

He was no more than thirty years of age at the time, less than six months retired from inter-county football. He still had a hell of a lot to give, as could been seen by the fact he was still playing club football six years later, in 2013, when he assumed the reins of the Kerry senior football team.

What he gave to Feale Rangers that year can’t quite be quantified, other than to say he was able to act as something of an anchor. An inter-county quality player being able to be there day in, day out, session after session, bringing younger players on, was invaluable. Simply being there allowed others to buy into the whole thing – something that happens all too rarely for Feale.

Fitzmaurice’s influence on that Feale Rangers victory ten years ago this year is, perhaps, one of the greatest examples of the boost a retired inter-county player can have on a team’s prospects in the county championship, but hardly the only one.

We need only look back to South Kerry’s victory in 2015 for another example. Declan O’Sullivan didn’t play a huge amount in that campaign – his knees simply wouldn’t allow him to – but he was there nevertheless, a spiritual leader for that relatively inexperienced South Kerry side.

It gave his colleagues confidence knowing that he was available to come on for ten minutes here and there when the need was greatest and pull something out of the bag as he did on more than one occasion.

Looking at this year’s championship and there’s three very high profile retirees – Marc Ó Sé with West Kerry, Colm Cooper with Dr Crokes and Aidan O’Mahony with Rathmore.

All three are sure to make significant impacts upon this year’s championship – as they have done for well over a decade, but this is about more than just what they do on the pitch, it’s about whether they can build a team around them.

For Dr Crokes the need might not seem so obvious – after all they’re the reigning champions, after all it’s just a couple of months since they triumphed in Croke Park in an All Ireland club final, but counter-intuitively that might make the need for Gooch to be a driving force even more pertinent.

It’s possible the club’s desire has been sated by achieving the ultimate in Paddy’s Day. It’s equally likely that it hasn’t, but until the Crokes find themselves in a do or die situation they and we can’t know that for certain.

Having Cooper there, bringing all his knowledge, his nous, his work-rate and his ambition, will come as manna from heaven to Pat O’Shea. To our mind at least Cooper’s retirement from the inter-county game has made Dr Crokes a potentially much more formidable prospect this season.

Probably the bigger question is whether Aidan O’Mahony can follow in Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s footsteps and help his side over the line in championship. Granted O’Mahony is much older than Fitzmaurice was in 2007, but he’s kept himself in remarkable physical condition over the years.

It’s probably worth remembering too that Rathmore are much closer to the promised land than Feale Rangers appeared to be at this stage of the competition in 2007 as they were preparing for a first round game with Ardfert in Frank Sheehy Park.

Rathmore just need a few percentage points more to get them over the line in those crunch games. With O’Mahony there to anchor the side as Fitzmaurice once did, with their younger players maturing, they’re as good as bet as any other side in this championship outside of the Crokes.

Ten years after one Kerry number six led Feale Rangers to a famous county championship success, could another Kerry number six be about to do the same? Strangers things have happened.