‘Of course you would consider it if approached’

KERRY minor boss Peter Keane has given his strongest indication yet that he’s open to the prospect of succeeding Éamonn Fitzmaurice as Kerry senior football manager.

“Of course you would consider it if approached and that’s a nice way of asking the question,” he said after leading the Kingdom to victory in the All Ireland minor final.

“This is a huge commitment. This is something you’d have to stop and think about and see will I do this or who would I bring with me or whatever, but all of that is rubbish and I made up my mind that that’s all it was going to be until such a time as you’re asked and if you’re not asked you didn’t waste your time thinking about something.”

The minor boss was glad the issue didn’t dominate in the buildup to the All Ireland minor final and revealed the question hadn’t been in his thoughts in the month since Fitzmaurice stepped aside.

“I was at that Kildare game myself and next thing two hours later my name was on Paddy Power or Betfred or some fella or whatever it is, but I know no more than ye know and ye might say he’s only copping out here. I wasn’t, but I made a conscious decision to say that I’ve a minor to win.

“The plan was to get over the All Ireland semi-final and hopefully get over a final and if that became a question deal with it then. Now at the end of the day you have to be asked, this isn’t something that – not that I’m aware of anyway – that there’s an application form to do this.

“Guys who’ve been chosen to do this by the County Board or the executive or whoever is there, they would have obviously sat down and they would have and maybe I’m wrong I’m only thinking about my own Supervalu in Killorglin and if my manager was leaving I’d sit down and I’d target, maybe I’d look for Timmy [Moynihan] there with his experience in Tralee.

“So you don’t know. I’ve no doubt that they probably have in their mind already made up who’s probably getting this and I don’t know I’m only speculating.”

In the wake of Kerry’s win on Sunday Keane was reinstalled as the bookies’ favourite.