O’Connor wants to stay with hurlers
KERRY senior hurling manager Fintan O’Connor has indicated his desire to remain at the helm for another stint.
The Kildare native (formerly of the Waterford senior hurling backroom team) completed his two-year term last Saturday afternoon with a victory over Antrim in the Kingdom’s final game in the inaugural Joe McDonagh Cup.
The victory left Kerry in third place in the table after five games and agonisingly close to a place in the final. Had they managed to see off Carlow in the first game – they led by two into the final ten minutes – then they would have done so.
That’s a measure of the progress that’s been made this year as O’Connor has continued his philosophy of blooding new players. O’Connor’s two years in charge have felt like the start of something rather than the end.
“I’ll sit down with the County Board in the next couple of weeks and months and we’ll go from there,” he told The Kerryman on Tuesday when asked about his future.
“In fairness the championship [Kerry SHC] starts next weekend and I’ll want to be going down looking to see [what we can find].
“I was happy with some of the players that came into the panel that we probably weren’t aware of before that, that we saw through the club championships, so we’ll be trying to do that again this year.
“We’ll see what happens and it probably will be that we’ll go again.”
The importance of the process of renewal that O’Connor has been embarking upon was laid bare by the news last weekend that former Kerry captain Tom Murnane is to hang up his boots at inter-county level.
The Kilmoyley man has been a stalwart presence for the Kingdom and has been an integral part of Kerry’s greatest triumphs this past decade.