Among the many critics of the so-called April club window there are some fanatics too. Paul Geaney has played some big games with Kerry in recent years, but few bigger with his club Dingle than in this month alone.
Last Sunday, Geaney showed Dingle the way as they beat Killarney Legion (1-10 to 0-5) to book their place in the Kerry senior club football final. That’s set for Sunday week, against Dr Crokes of Killarney, at Austin Stack Park in Tralee and there’s a potentially big prize at stake.
Not to be confused with the Kerry county football final, to be played later in the season, the winners of the club final can go forward to the Munster club championship, should that county final be won by a Kerry divisional side (which it often is). No wonder Geaney is so excited about it.
“A lot to play for, definitely,” he says. “We actually won this competition in 2015, but South Kerry were playing Legion in the final of the county, and they drew. And the first round of Munster was a week later. And the county board decided to put Legion through. Then they lost to Nemo, and lost to South Kerry the week after. So that was a bit contentious with us.”
Win or lose on Sunday week, Geaney has enjoyed these past few weeks playing solely with the club, and reckons Kerry are a sort of model and microcosm of how the month can be used.
“Is been great to get back to the club so early in the year. Last year we’d a good run of games, too, four games in April too, just after the league.
“This year we’ve had three rounds of county championship so far, and it’s a good standard too go back to. The club championship is not the Holy Grail really, with the county championship as well, but it’s pretty much everyone wants to win, every week.
“It’s been enjoyable, especially when things are going well for the club, which they are for us, clearly. I think we’ve six intercounty players [with Dingle] and we all get to go back to the club this year, so it’s been a great month from our perspective.”
The break from Kerry, he says, isn’t doing them any harm either. Kerry aren’t out in the Munster championship until June 2nd, and by then the likes of Kieran Donaghy, James O’Donoghue and Anthony Maher will be back on board.
“We’ve been tipping away a small bit with Kerry, but the focus has been on the clubs this month. I think we’ve done it well in Kerry though. I’m not sure everyone has been the same, but the county board and senior management have been very good in managing the availability of players to the club scene, in the last two years specifically.”
Good times
Donaghy sat out the league to concentrate on his basketball, and with around 16 other senior players injured or resting, it was a more development Kerry panel than recent years.
“It’s better to have guys coming back now, than starting out with a clean bill of health, then losing guys throughout. If anything, we had 17 or 18 injuries at the start of the year, so they’re all coming back in dribs and drabs, and hopefully by the time the club scene is done in two weeks time everyone will have a clean bill of health, looking forward, four weeks then before Clare and Limerick, so good timing hopefully.
“It’s disappointing looking back [on the league], that we didn’t get to the final, which would have been the objective at the start, injuries or not. I suppose also when you look back at the number of guys we did blood, and the number of injuries we did have, like, staying in Division One, and got a couple of wins, got the experience for those guys, it was a good innings, six or seven intercounty games under their belt, a lot of them wouldn’t have had that, 10 or 15 minutes maybe, so that’s a good result. So I think what we got out of the league was good as well.”
One definite addition for the summer, he says, is David Clifford.
“It’s a big transition and there is a lot of learning but David is capable of learning and performing at the same time I think. But I expect him to play his part.”
No mention for now, however, or rivals Dublin.
“I think talking about Dublin is kind of futile at the moment. You can’t win talking about them because you are distracting yourself, so as a player you just kind of have to get on with your job and try and do your best to be successful.”
