When most of the top teams are rebuilding they can be expected to reach the All-Ireland quarter-finals and maybe win the odd provincial title. That’s not good enough for Kerry.
The Kingdom have been rebuilding for the past two or three years, maybe even since before they won the Sam Maguire in 2014, but they still expect All-Ireland titles down there.
They are definitely in the top four teams in the country, along with Mayo, Tyrone and then Dublin still a fair bit ahead of everyone else, and I wouldn’t write any of those off from winning Sam Maguire.
Kerry though aren’t in the top two, I’d have them behind Mayo and a bit ahead of Tyrone, and that’s not something that’s been said about them very often so they don’t top my list of contenders.
Marc Ó Sé and Aidan O’Mahony have both retired with no one stepping straight into their boots and it’s in defence that they are feeling the loss of experienced players most.
Kerry like to play a certain way and even though they have become more defensive like everyone else, they were able to rely on the best forwards in the country.
You can survive without the best defenders if you perfect the system - Philip Jordan
They don’t have the best forwards in the country any more either so they are going to have to pay more attention to their defensive set-up.
Not having the best man-markers around isn’t as important as it was in the past at the back - I don’t know can I even mention five out-and-out man-markers any more. Lads in the full-back line can play a risker game now and challenge for the ball knowing that the cover is there.
That means that you can survive without the best defenders if you perfect the system and that’s what Eamonn Fitzmaurice will be spending most of his time on the training ground these days.
Up front they will still be relying heavily on the Gooch and Kieran Donaghy come the summer. Paul Geaney stepped up a lot last year and he will be a big player for them this season even given a slow start to the League and James O’Donoghue needs to come back in to his best form after all his injury troubles.
They haven’t won an All-Ireland Under-21 since 2008 so they will be looking for their successful minors from the past few years to step up. Tyrone have had plenty of minor success and haven’t been consistently able to transfer that up to Under-21 and on to senior. Under-21 is definitely the better All-Ireland to win and that’s something the Kingdom will want to do this year.
In the past a place in Division 1’s top four was enough to book a League semi-final, but the GAA have done away with them so only the top two will go through to the final. With that in mind Kerry will want to win all of their remaining games to start a bit of momentum.
They have some tough games coming up, including Dublin and Tyrone at home.
If they go and lose those they could find themselves in a relegation fight alongside Roscommon and Cavan and that would see them going into the summer in a negative frame of mind. If they can swing that around, win those two games and make the League final they will take big positives out of the springtime.
Some people like to say that Kerry have it easy and go straight into an All-Ireland quarter-final every year, but this is a disadvantage too. If they don’t get momentum in the League, it can be hard to build it before they get to Croke Park and that’s something that will be weighing on Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s mind.
And I’d hope that no one is thinking that I’m just having a pop at Kerry here, because that’s not the case. In Tyrone we always had the height of respect for Kerry and their players - we rated them as the best and to win an All-Ireland we had to beat them.
I made great friends with a few of their lads over the years on International Rules trips and Tomás Ó Sé was good enough to come up to my club Moy for a special night they held after myself and Ryan Mellon, which I really appreciated.
I have never been on my holidays to Killarney, but I might go for the weekend to see the last League match against Tyrone. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll pull a cap down over my face to try to avoid drawing attention to myself or maybe get Tomás to smuggle me into the ground!
