‘Galway strong and mobile’

IT’S not something he’d do. It’s not something he’d countenance his players doing. Complacency, it’s abhorrent to the man. It’s not in his lexicon and signs on Kerry’s record under Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s tenure has been phenomenally consistent.

Kerry don’t do slip ups. Kerry don’t lose games they should have won. At worst they’ve been a little undercooked at the start of the championship, but that’s hardly a hanging offence.

The facts speak for themselves. The only games Kerry have lost in championship football since the Finuge man assumed the reins have been against Dublin. Teams are paid the respect they deserve and this weekend’s opponents, Galway, will be no different.

Their strengths and weaknesses will be sliced and diced and parsed ad infinitum.

“They are strong and mobile in the middle,” Fitzmaurice says of Galway.

“I think under Kevin Walsh as well they have definitely identified the need to be stronger at the back. They are good at getting bodies back, they have a strong structure, they are excellent counter-attacking; they have a lot of pace in the team.

“Their forwards the last day, the likes of Shane Walsh, [Michael] Daly, [Damien] Comer, [Ian] Burke, Danny Cummins only came on as a sub, [Michael] Meehan came on as a sub, Sean Armstrong, [Johnny] Heaney got two goals: those fellas would get on any team in Ireland.

“They have serious forwards, a strong midfield, strong defensive set-up, so they tick a lot of the boxes.”

As for the notion that if you run at Galway there’s gains to be made, Fitzmaurice takes a measured position.

“I’m always saying it that any team that’s run at, they’re going to struggle to defend it if you get strong runners coming at you in numbers it’s a hard thing to defend. It’s often thrown at ourselves.

“Every team that gets runners running in numbers at pace it’s hard to defend it. I think when you look at those two teams you mentioned in particular [Roscommon and Donegal],

“Donegal have very good forwards inside in particular McBrearty. He’s very hard to mark when he gets ball, always is.

“Similarly with the Roscommon forwards, they’ve very good forwards, they’re going to test any full-back line.

“I think often times the fullback lines can come under negative scrutiny, because teams have good forwards and then they get good ball in hand and they can be hard to defend against.”