WHET BLADE & A KEANE EDGE

READY TO RUMBLE.. Peter Keane & David Moran are raring to go again now

PETER KEANE says the knockout format has whetted his appetite for this year’s Championship.

Once the League is completed, Keane’s Kerry side open their campaign with a mouth-watering Munster semi-final against Cork at Pairc Ui Chaoimh on November 8 – a day when one of them will be eliminated.

It will be the first knockout meeting of the counties in the Championship since the 2009 All-ireland final and their first in Munster since the provincial semi-final of 2000.

“I love traditional Championship that is knockout and you are all-in for it,” said Keane.

“Whether it is Cork in a semi-final or Munster final, whatever it may be, you are going in to win the game, put out the best show you can possibly do, to see where you end up. You’re not going in thinking we could lose this game. In Kerry you are going out to win the game, that is it.”

While the lull of the last seven months has been far from ideal, it has allowed some of Keane’s key men to work through injury problems and regain match fitness at club level.

“Peter

Crowley being the most prominent of them, David Moran as well,” he explained. “They weren’t available, now they are training fully.

“Peter suffered a cruciate ligament injury last year.

“We were hoping to have him back late March, possibly last two rounds of the League.

“His district, Mid Kerry, got all the way to the county final so he has got a bit of football under his belt. David has had it, we are working towards it with the two of them.

“James (O’donoghue, inset) got injured in the Galway game and he missed the other three games. He has had a bit of rest over lockdown and we are looking forward to getting going again.” However, Keane will be without coach Donie Buckley, who left just before lockdown, but he declined to elaborate on his departure.

He added: “Look, I suppose it is water under the bridge.

“What I can say is that we parted company, I don’t get into individual discussions I have with either members of the management or the players.

“You have privileged discussions going on all of the time and that would be a breach of them. That is where it is.”