ALTHOUGH he awaits the results of a visit to a specialist for team captain Bryan Sheehan today to discover the extent of a hand injury sustained against Mayo, Kerry manager Eamon Fitzmaurice is looking forward to the challenge of heading to Clones on Sunday to face Monaghan in St Tiernach’s Park.
Sheehan could miss the rest of Kerry’s AFL campaign depending on the severity of the injury with a possible timeframe of between two to six weeks recovery given by the Kingdom boss.
Fitzmaurice finds himself facing the Farney County in the penultimate round of fixtures like last year, a day when Monaghan turned Kerry over in Tralee, despite his best efforts to get the team focussed right for the encounter.
“I remember speaking to the players last year and trying to get through to them that Monaghan would make it very difficult for us that day. Sadly I couldn’t get through to them and we paid the price for it. I thought it was a game that summed up our year in a lot of ways because there was no consistency in our performance that day,” the Kerry manager said of last year’s meeting between the sides.
While Conor McManus may have grabbed the headlines, Rory Beggan along with Darren and Kieran Hughes’ performances also caught Fitzmaurice’s eye in that game and he expects Monaghan to provide another stiff test on their own patch.
“For their own situation in the table you have to expect a major challenge above anything else. I thought Monaghan were very unlucky not to get something from the Dublin game in particular.
“It’s one thing you always have to deal with when you are involved with Kerry in that every team always rises their game for you regardless of how they are doing in general,” he said.
From a playing perspective Fitzmaurice says he welcomes the prospect of heading into a potential ‘cauldron’ in Clones.
“Certainly if I was still playing I’d relish the chance to play there. There is such a significance to the place with Ulster Finals and many of the Ulster Championship games in general played there. It’s no different to what we faced against Mayo in Castlebar but I always feel away wins are important for any side in terms of gaining momentum and building a team spirit within the camp,” the 2014 All-Ireland winning manager said.
As the League gets down to what Fitzmaurice termed almost a ‘Championship phase’ in the last two games he agrees with the view that this is the Kingdom’s best chance to make the League semi-finals for the first time in his four years in charge.
“I would be very disappointed if we didn’t make the semi-finals from here as it would mean that we didn’t win either one or both of our last two games.
"I do think that any team that doesn’t qualify for the semi-finals with eight points in the table can count themselves very unlucky though. I would say that all bets are off in terms of the semi-finals if Monaghan win though because Cork and Mayo can still have us thinking about something else (avoiding relegation on the last day) if they both end up beating Down.”
While Sheehan is extremely doubtful for Sunday with his present injury, all regulars bar Anthony Maher and James O’Donoghue should be available for selection ahead of Kerry’s second trip to Ulster this year.
