Dingle and Crokes contingent closing in on county captaincy

AS ever, the county champions will have the honour of nominating the man to captain the Kerry senior football team in 2019, and ahead of Sunday’s county final that number is down to about five.

With Peter Keane taking over as Kerry manager who knows what Dr Crokes and Dingle players the new management have in mind for the county panel, but we can assume there will be at least a couple of representatives from the county champions on the Kerry team next year, no matter who wins on Sunday.

It has been quite some time since Dr Crokes haven’t had a player on the Kerry panel and in 2018 the Killarney club had Shane Murphy, Fionn Fitzgerald, Gavin White, Micheal Burns and Daithi Casey on the Kerry panel. Johnny Buckley had started the year with the county team also, but he withdrew from the squad due to personal reasons.

Dingle players involved with the Kerry panel in 2018 were Paul and Michael Geaney, Barry O’Sullivan, Tom O’Sullivan, Matthew Flaherty and Conor Geaney (though the latter was on the injured list for a lot of the summer, and continues to rehab from injury.

In the event that Dingle lift the Bishop Moynihan Cup next Sunday it is fair to assume the club will nominate Paul Geaney to captain Kerry. He is by some distance the most senior and experienced Dingle man on the Kerry team and would be a popular choice.

Dr Crokes will possibly have more options of starting Kerry players to choose from, and while Fionn Fitzgerald and Johnny Buckley (were he to return) would be the more senior players, one of White, Murphy and Burns could be handed the honour.

Peter Keane has suggested that while the tradition of the county champions choosing the Kerry captain is an honourable one he could be open to allowing the team management at least have a say in who captains Kerry. But that won’t happen in 2019.