Kerry football manager Éamonn Fitzmaurice has dismissed claims that his side’s straight-forward route to the All-Ireland semi-final has left them ill-prepared for a meeting with Dublin (3.30pm, live on RTÉ One).
The Kingdom take on the Dubs on Sunday for a place in the All-Ireland final at Croke Park but there has been questions raised over his side’s journey to the quarter-finals.
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Fitzmaurice’s men have only faced Clare and Tipperary en-route to the semi-final and at no stage were they seriously pushed by either side.
Kerry sauntered to a 12-point win over Clare in the Munster semi-final, then cruised to a 10-point success over Tipperary in the Munster final.
They then claimed a 2-16 to 0-11 victory over Clare in the All-Ireland quarter-finals, but Fitzmaurice claims that his side have had it tougher than it appears from the outside.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport, the Kerry boss said: "Tipperary were in the last four. Clare have shown this year what a good team they are, in particular when they went through the qualifiers.
"Taking out the likes of Roscommon, a Division One team, was a big achievement for them so I think people maybe underestimate the quality of those teams.
"Playing Kerry at the end of August and playing Kerry in the month of April are two very different things."
"We’re very familiar with them from the Munster Championship and we knew we had to be on guard from those games and we were happy to come through them.
"We’ve been training away now, looking forward to the game. We’ve had the four week break and we’re anticipating the game at this stage."
There’s no question that a clash with Dublin is a serious step-up in quality of opponent for Kerry but Fitzmaurice is quietly confident that his side have a plan to break down the All-Ireland champions, even if he is keeping it close to his chest.
"We have some kind of a plan but to be fair to them they’re an outstanding team and they very much will have a gameplan themselves that they stick to through thick and thin," he said.
"Regardless of what the opposition throw at them, they’re very good at sticking to their own gameplan and trusting it. They finish very strong and they get goals late in games.
"We’ve got plenty of thoughts on them but trying it out on the pitch on Sunday will be the challenge for us."
Fitzmaurice was giving little away however and when asked if his side would employ a sweeper system against Dublin, he said: "We’ve a lot of different things we can try but I think you’re going to have to watch the game to see what we can try and do to beat them.
"We’ve been looking forward to this game all year. We under-performed in the All-Ireland final last year and they beat us in the league final this year so they have the Indian sign over us.
"We knew that the way the draw was, that if we won the Munster final we’d meet them in the semi-final so it’s a game we’ve been looking for all year.
"At this stage the league final is ancient history, it’s four months ago. We went all out to win it but at the time we weren’t good enough but playing Kerry at the end of August and playing Kerry in the month of April are two very different things."
