Crokes loss should be to Kerry’s gain as players become available earlier

is without question; the next part is to see how well he can defend against top class inter-county forwards.

Micheál Burns didn’t have a good day in the Munster Club Final at the weekend but heretofore he has been one of Crokes’ best forwards this past year. Like club mates Daithí Casey and Brian Looney before him, Burns at least deserves an chance to prove himself at inter-county level over the coming months.

Whether or not the Kerry management decide to retain Fionn Fitzgerald or call in Tony Brosnan are other decisions for them, but at least now the pathway is clear for the county team management to call on whoever they want whenever they want from the county champions, as it should be.

Coming back from Cork on Sunday evening some commentator said on RTÉ Radio that Nemo’s victory over Dr Crokes would be good for Cork football, in particular the senior team, which new manager Ronan McCarthy will be trying to rebuild this spring. The problem there, of course, is an obvious one. McCarthy’s first objective will be to get Cork promoted out of Division 2, but for at least the first three (and probably four) rounds he won’t have the Nemo players available to him, and should Nemo beat Slaughtneil then the Cork management mightn’t see a Nemo player until the last round of the league.

In Cork’s case, Nemo’s club commitment post-Christmas could be more debilitating to their county team than Crokes would be (or has been) to Kerry, but for the players in question it’s another matter.

There’s a sense that while it was his performances in the county championship and beyond that touted Daithi Casey for a Kerry career, it was that very involvement with his club that stymied any real opportunity to stake a claim with Kerry in successive National League campaigns. There were, presumably, other reasons that Casey, for example, never made the breakthrough, but at least now – with a major shake-up of the Kerry panel expected next spring – players like White and Burns and Murphy will have only one master to serve. Obviously those players, and others, would love to have joined a very small group of footballers to have won back-toback All-Ireland Club titles, but equally they would want to win an All-Ireland medal with Kerry.

That first step can now start in January, not April. An ill wind indeed.