GAANEWS1: IAN O’RIORDAN:

Now that Joe Schmidt has mastered the art of maintaining form in the face of favouritism it’s over to Stephen Stack. For the Kerry football champions, Sunday’s AIB Munster club final must feel like a rugby tour somewhere into North America.

It’s not just that Austin Stacks are starring the likes of Kieran Donaghy, with other leading names in a supporting role, such as Kerry veteran William Kirby. Their opponents, The Nire, have never won a Munster title, nor indeed has any Waterford club. Truth is many of their footballers are probably better hurlers.

Not that Stack isn’t well schooled in this business, given one of his former managers, the late Paidi O Se, was famous for his persistently superstitious face when it came to any Kerry favouritism. Stack was corner back on the Kerry team that finally broke through again under O Se, in 1997, to win a first All-Ireland since 1986, and there are other similarities between that year and where Austin Stacks are now.

“I had huge regard for Paidi, and to this day I miss him terribly,” says Stack. “He was a marvellous man, a great guy to talk to. You could pick up the phone and talk to him about any subject, and he was actually a very good listener, which is actually something not many people would appreciate. I certainly learned a huge amount from him, playing with him, and then being managed by him.

“And I’d like to think I learned from all the coaches I had, the likes Mickey Ned O’Sullivan, Ogie Moran, Mick O’Dwyer. I had access to all those people along the way, and would, by nature, be like a sponge, and try to pick something up from anybody I think might know one per cent more than me.

“But I learn from the players all the time, as well, ask them things and question them quite a lot. They are like the troops in the trenches, they are the guys who have to go out and win the game for you every day and you would be a fool not to listen to them, too.”

There was famous picture, of Stack and O’Se, taken not long after the final whistle in that 1997 All-Ireland against Mayo, when the two of them are smiling in the face of each other. Stack had been playing with Kerry since 1992, the season they were sensationally beaten by Clare in the Munster final.

“That was an incredibly special time, for the likes of myself, and Maurice Fitzgerald, who had been around for a while. I still have absolutely no recollection of who I met for about two or three minutes on the pitch because I just remember I ran up and down like an idiot, jumping up in the air.

“And I have to say when the final whistle went in the county final replay (against Mid Kerry), I felt something similar, because there was just as much riding on that result, for us, in that we just could not afford to lose that game.”

Which is way, after winning back a Kerry title for the first time since 1994, and now contesting a first Munster club final since 1976, when they won their first and only provincial title, Austin Stacks don’t need to pretend what awaits them in Pairc Ui Rinn in Sunday: The Nire may have nothing to lose, which is exactly why Stack won’t be underestimating them

“It doesn’t matter what put a badge on them, whether they’re from a so-called weaker county, or otherwise. These fellas put in the same effort that we do. The club championship is a very different competition anyway.

“Not many teams from Kerry have won it, and it’s littered with teams from so-called weaker counties that do very well in it. The likes of Eire Og, Baltinglass, Rathnew. St Gall’s are another. It’s a completely different mind-set, and a completely different competition.

“And we haven’t been in this situation in 20 years. Our view is that this opportunity might never again come around. We were in a very difficult place, after losing the county final last year, and until I go to the grave, I’ll never forget the loyalty and defiance that the supporters had on our behalf.

“But the Nire are a serious team, very physical, with some very natural footballers, with probably the best 17 year-old in the country right now in Conor Gleeson. But the one thing we always say to each other, as a squad, and a management team, is we never want to have any regrets.”

The list of high-profile intercounty retirements continues, with veteran Down footballer Benny Coulter calling time on his 15-year career: although he never won a senior All-Ireland, Coulter was widely regarded as one of the best forwards in the game, also winning an All-Ireland minor title, in 1999.

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