KERRY MANAGER Jack O’Connor is set to fill the vacancy in his backroom team by welcoming back Eamon Fitzmaurice, Kerry’s current under-21 manager, who had acted as a selector with O’Connor in both 2009 and 2010.
This follows the decision last month of Donie Buckley to opt out as team trainer. Fitzmaurice has indicated he is willing to come back on board, but only after Kerry’s opening championship match against Tipperary on Sunday week – and provided Kerry win.
A former All-Ireland medal winning defender, Fitzmaurice took over as under-21 manager this season, and O’Connor is also keen to strengthen the link with the current under-21 panel.
Meanwhile, after twice being postponed last month the Dublin club football championship will get under way this week, just as manager Pat Gilroy is finalising his championship panel. Between tomorrow and Friday evening, 15 first-round games are scheduled – having being deferred last month when Dublin’s under-21s progressed to the All-Ireland final, where they beat Roscommon. The Dublin County Board will look to play some club games during Dublin’s Leinster championship campaign, in what would be a break from tradition.
Gilroy looks set to call on four of Dublin’s successful under-21s ahead of the championship opener against Louth or Westmeath on June 3rd: star forward Ciarán Kilkenny and defender Jack McCaffrey top the list, although both are also sitting the Leaving Cert in the coming weeks, with midfielder Emmet Ó Conghaile and centre forward Gary Sweeney also likely to get runs in the coming weeks.
Dublin will have had an eight-week break since the end of the league and the start of the championship, and the first round of the club championship, as late as it is, will provide some important match practice for the likes of Bernard Brogan, Eoghan O’Gara and Alan Brogan – given their limited participation in the league.
Meanwhile, Tipperary hurler Lar Corbett has admitted it could be “months” and “not weeks” before he returns to match fitness, having just ended his temporary exit from the team, which means he’s unlikely to feature in the Munster hurling championship opener against Limerick on Sunday week.
“I am realistic about how much work I have to do to get my fitness level up to what it should be to play for Tipperary this year,” said Corbett, who hasn’t played at any level since his club Thurles Sarsfields lost against Clonoulty-Rossmore in last October’s Tipperary semi-final. “If I get into that position and I’m called on, I will do my best. But we are talking months here, not weeks.”
Limerick’s build-up to the Tipperary game on Sunday week suffered a setback with the news defender Séamus Hickey will be out for six to eight weeks with a broken elbow, sustained while playing for his club Murroe-Boher over the weekend. Hickey only recently returned to the panel having missed their league campaign due to study commitments in America, and while the injury won’t require surgery, it does leave the 2007 young hurler of the year wondering what, if any role, he’ll play in the Munster championship.
