Fitzmaurice satisfied at a job well done

“YOU’RE a complete perfectionist I’d say are you?” Eamonn Fitzmaurice smiled and sighed when asked if there was anything he was unhappy about in the performance his team gave last weekend.

On one level you can understand the Finuge man’s amusement, on another it was a reasonable question to ask. After a game like that you’re left scratching in the dirt, looking for those little kernels of information and insight beyond the obvious.

The obvious on this occasion was that Kerry were absolutely sensational, equally so that Kildare were hugely disappointing (and that’s a contender for understatement of the year even at this early stage).

It leaves you wondering precisely how to react to it. It leaves you wondering how does a manager? It leaves you wondering what does he draw from it? Under those circumstances it makes more sense to ask about what might have disappointed the manager than to have him wax lyrical about what pleased him most (where to start?).

“Of course I’m sure when we look back at it there’s things that we won’t be overly happy about,” he continued.

“There’s things we’ll have to improve on for sure, but any time you come out on the side of a big win in a quarter-final you’re going to take it and you’re going to be happy. We’ve three more weeks to prepare for an All Ireland semi-final. There’s things we can be improving on, but we’re definitely going in the right direction.”

There’s no question about that following a 7-16 total. There’s no question either following Sunday’s game that Colm Cooper is back approaching his imperious best. He got seventy minutes against Kildare, courtesy of an unfortunate groin injury to Kieran Donaghy.

The captain picked up the knock in training on the Thursday before the game and was given every chance of making the starting fifteen. He was togged and took part in the warm-up.

The first indication he wasn’t going to start was when David Moran (his fellow Tralee man) went for the toss before the game. Disappointing for Donaghy, but every cloud has a silver-lining and Cooper delivered in spades.

“It’s great for Colm,” he manager said. “Since the drawn game he’s really trained well, his football form has picked up a good bit, he made a big contribution in the replay he’s trained well since the replay, he was pushing hard for a start today and with Kieran’s injury it gave us a chance to start him and he got seventy minutes under the belt which was brilliant.”

It was another indication of just how strong a panel the Kingdom have at present. There was Cooper and there was the impact made by pretty much all six of Kerry’s subs, starting with Barry John Keane and Darran O’Sullivan and ending with Johnny Buckley and Tommy Walsh.

“They did [impact],” Fitzmaurice agreed.

“That was satisfying from the point of view that we’ve struggled this year so far, well up to the drawn Munster final, where we weren’t quite getting the impact that we should have been getting from the subs coming on, but since that replay game and again today all the subs contributed which was great.

“It didn’t [stop being useful], because we got game time into all our subs, Tommy Walsh was another man who was frustrated and who hadn’t got action in either of the Munster finals and had been going well in training and unfortunately you can only put on six subs on a day.

“He was one of the fellas who missed out both of those games. He came on and he got ten minutes at the end and caught a couple of kick-outs and played a bit of football in Croke Park, so at no stage did it cease becoming useful.

“That’s what the competition in the squad is all about. The thing about it today is that fellas came on today, did well, they’re going to be pushing hard for a starting position so that’s going to mean that the football is going to be competitive for the next two and a half weeks and after that then we’ll see who are the lads going best and we’ll put the best team out for the All Ireland semi-final.”

Once the final whistle blew you would have expected a certain amount of elation, that was, after all, one of the all time great performances. Fitzmaurice allowed himself a smile alright, but neither he nor his players got too carried way.

“They were just happy with a job well done. I think twenty one Kerry men took to the field today. I’d say most of them would have done their job quite well, maybe one or two would have been slightly disappointed, but most of the lads would have done their job well. It’s just satisfaction with a job well done and we move on now to the next challenge.”

It’s great for Colm. Since the drawn game he’s trained really well, his football form has picked up a good bit