By John Harrington

Former All-Ireland winning Kerry manager, Eamonn Fitzmaurice, sat down with the media after yesterday's launch of the Future Leaders leagan Gaeilge in association with TG4 and COGG.

Over the course of an extensive interview, he spoke about the obsessive nature of inter-county management, the current power-struggle between Dublin and Kerry, why Peter Keane might have an edge over Dessie Farrell in 2020, and the X-factor a fit again James O'Donoghue gives the Kingdom footballers.

Q: Eamonn, are you missing inter-county management?

A: I'm not missing it to be honest, I think I was there for a good few years, obviously as a manager and as a selector previously and I really enjoyed it but I'm busy in my job, I'm busy in family life and I'm enjoying supporting the team and looking at them advancing but I don't, I can genuinely say hand on heart I don't.

I saw a thing last night, I'd a smile, I saw Paul O'Connell did an interview with RTÉ and I just saw a thing on the RTÉ app last night, he was mentioning how intense he found the coaching in Stade Francais. He was spending the day of the game the Saturday and then the six hours at the video the next day and preparing the sessions and everything.

I'd a little smile to myself and I was saying when you've a full-time job on top of that, particularly at this time of the year the league, the championship is more manageable for a teacher especially, but the league is very intense when you're turning around from week to week and you're trying to review and look forward and you've only x amount of time with the players so I don't miss that intensity. I think when you're inside in it, there's a kind of a beautiful insanity about it but when you move out, you do realise there are aspects of it that are insane and probably need to be insane if you're trying to be competitive. So I'm not missing it no.

Q: Did inter-county management become an obsession – particularly the challenge of trying to defeat a Jim Gavin managed Dublin team?

A: Yeah totally obsessive, totally and I think that's the nature of elite sport. As a player we were obsessive as well about always trying to improve. That's the nature of the beast and certainly when you get into the management side of it, you're all the time trying to think of ways to improve, think of ways to improve yourself, think of ways to improve the management and backroom team and then that'll help improve the players. It does, it becomes a complete obsession. It takes over your life and in a positive way. I think sometimes an obsession can be viewed as being negative. You're really putting yourself to the pin of your collar.

You are testing every aspect fo urself trying to improve and particularly when you have good days it is very rewarding and fulfilling then obviously when you have the bad days it is very disappointing but overall a very positive experience but yeah I think you do become completely and utterly obsessed with it definitely yeah.

Q: A number of Kerry men, including some former team-mates, are now managing inter-county teams in Leinster (Jack O’Connor, Paul Galvin and Micheal Quirke). Have you spoken to any of them about it?

A: I have, I suppose. I have spoken to Paul a few times. I haven’t really spoken to Micheal Quirke and I met Jack once just bumped into him. Again, I’m smiling away to myself a good bit. Again, as part of that obsessive personality everyone wants to have a cut at it at some stage and see how they get on and so on. I know Paul is really enjoying the Wexford experience at the moment and again there are plenty of challenges there but when you overcome these challenges it is very rewarding. He has come in when they are at a low base so he is going to try and change things and improve things. And like every new manager it will take a bit of time but I’d be confident he will definitely make progress.

Q: Were you surprised to see Paul take on the Wexford job?

A: I wasn’t surprised at all he is a deep thinker on the game and he has a lot of big ideas and good ideas. If he wasn’t getting involved with a senior inter-county team he would have gotten involved with a club team. He is that kind of personality he’d like to check himself out and see how he’d get on. When he was teaching in the Sem and in Chriost Ri, and when you are involved with school teams it gives you an appetite to go on and get involved with other teams so I wasn’t surprised really.

Q: Were you surprised there was so much made about Paul Galvin dropping players in Wexford?

A: To me I was saying ‘new manager comes in, the team didn’t do great last year, new manager makes changes'. I didn’t see the big deal at the time, I suppose the fact that Paul’s profile probably attracted a bit of attention to it. There are aspects like that you certainly go… when you see teams losing games narrowly you know what that’s like especially early in the year you don’t miss that. But then the big days like last Saturday night here which was a great game you’d love to be involved on those nights but it takes so much work and commitment to get to that point of standing on the sideline enjoying a seriously intense and competitive game that so much goes to get to that point if you could go from match to match and be standing there without any of the other stuff you’d love that alright.

Q: Would you like to get back involved at that level or is the door closed now?

A: No it’s not, the door isn’t completely closed but at the moment I am very happy being out of it. We have two small kids at home I’m enjoying being able to spend time with them. My job is busy, there’s a steep learning curve in that so there are challenges there and I’m trying to get a grip in that as well. The school teams are a great way of feeding the habit so to speak and working with lads that age.

You’d never say never but at the moment I’m quite content with where I am and what I am doing. I was involved in it for a long time. I went straight from playing and into management with Jack to the U21s and then into the seniors and I was in with the school teams since I started teaching so I was in at the top level for a long time and it is good to step back and as I said I’m enjoying going to the games and supporting the lads as well.

Q: Would you consider managing a county other than Kerry?

A: No, I wouldn’t manage any other county ever. One thing I would like to do I would love to give my club a bit of a dig out. I think as a player I was lucky I retired relatively young from intercounty football and I got to go back and spend five or six very enjoyable years with my club when the body was still strong and able and I wasn’t going back patched up after a long county career. I really enjoyed that. I’m living in Blennerville now. I’m half an hour from Finuge-Lixnaw so it is not feasible to be getting involved and going out training them but certainly I’d like to get involved with my own club again. But no, to be honest I would never see myself getting involved with another county. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to face Kerry, so it wouldn’t appeal to me.

Q: Do you think the Kerry captaincy is a burden for David Clifford or is he well able for it?

A: He’s more than capable; I think the only factor against him is how young he is. But he’s into his third season, he’s a vocal presence in the dressing room, he will get plenty of support in the dressing room, he has a strong home environment and will get plenty of support at home which would be important if he does hit a dip in form. So, I don’t see any down-side really, his personality is very grounded, he is not going to get carried away and if anything it might inspire him a bit more. He is into his third season now, he has had two amazing seasons and it might give him a bit of an angle to keep trying to improve himself so I don’t see a downside to be honest.

Q: Could his captaincy be a source of motivation for his generation of young players in the panel? Another reminder that it’s not up to them to drive the thing on?

A: Absolutely, and that’s the generation we need to drive it on from the point of view of trying to be successful. Sean O’Shea is another player on that team who is a big leader, he is only 21 now and he is 22 in July. He is into his fourth season; he has a lot of experience built up. My last year in charge would have been his second year and he was a member of a leadership group that year from that exact point of view that the younger generation did have a voice at the top table and he was very effective and very impressive in that leadership group. So leaders are born a lot of the time rather than created, so if you have those leadership skills and you are used to winning I don’t think age should be a barrier to that.

Q: In terms of developing and encouraging that belief and leadership, was it important for Kerry to get at least a draw from last weekend’s League opener against Dublin?

A: I think it was important in terms of the league anyway, it would have been disappointing having been in such an important position coming down the stretch to have lost it and got no points out of the first day out. I think it was great to get a point, funnily enough I think this weekend’s game will be tougher because Dublin and Kerry were in a similar position coming back from holidays.

It was a big game under lights in Croke Park, looking forward to it for a long time with the rivalry between them. Whereas Galway I imagine have a lot more work done than Kerry and are coming off a win, so that’s going to be a tough game for us this Saturday night. But I think it was just important to get the result from the point of view of the league and I think one of the big plusses out of last season was the consistency we had during the league, which was something we strived for during my time, but we never quite got it.

We were up and down, in 2016 we maybe lost the first game or two but we had a very consistent league for the rest of it until we lost the final. But other than that our league form has always been up and down, and I think that was one of the big positives from last season, that there was a consistent form there through the league and the lads will be looking to maintain that this season.

Q: Is every game this Kerry team plays against this Dublin team now important from a psychological point of view?

A: It is. But sometimes you can read too much into it. In 2017 we drew in the league in Tralee which was a big game, won the league final afterwards. We didn’t get to meet them in championship that year. Every game takes on a life of its own. You saw the way Dublin came alive again as usual in the last 10 minutes – they certainly didn’t want to lose the game. They didn’t want to give Kerry any encouragement at all. Every game is important on its own merits. If we get those rivals in a league final it will make for a great game again.

Q: Given Dublin’s dominance in the last decade, does Kerry’s 2014 All-Ireland win give you a deeper sense of satisfaction now?

A: I’ve never really thought about that. I feel that when I was there we definitely should have got at least one more out of it. Then you think and you say you were up against one of the best teams of all time in Dublin. And the Mayo team – even though they haven’t managed to get over the line – have been an outstanding team as well. So we were up against great teams at that time. It was great to get it over the line in 2014. I still think in 2013, we were there or thereabouts. In 2015 we didn’t perform in the final but were there or thereabouts. 2016 similarly. 2017, we had the All-Ireland semi-final won out here and we gave up possession in injury time. Mayo got a draw out of it and we didn’t perform in the replay. So we weren’t a million miles away at any stage.

A factor I think sometimes is James O’Donoghue hasn’t had much luck in the meantime in terms of staying fit. He stayed fit for all of that season in 2014 and was huge for us. Any year you win there is those little breaks that go your way and you are thankful for them and other years then things went against us.

The way I felt at the end, from my own point of view, the lads I was working with and the players, we gave it everything every year. That year we were good enough, the other years we weren’t good enough. You accept that, just say, it would have been nice to have won another one or two but we didn’t. That Dublin team are some team.

Q: Was it a tricky time for you to take charge of a Kerry team arguably in a period of transition?

A: I didn’t look at it that way now. I felt it was a great opportunity for me and I think I was only 35 when I was asked to do the job so to be asked to do a job of that magnitude so young and to be entrusted to do that, there was no way I was going to say, ‘No, I’ll bide my time here’ or whatever. I went at it, I felt that we had players to be seriously competitive and to be challenging for All-Irelands and I think we did. We got it over the line in 2014, a lot of the other years we were there or thereabouts. We didn’t quite get it done but we were very competitive and I wouldn’t change that decision to go at it at that time. I think when your stock is high and you’re ask to do a job, you go at it and that’s it and whatever comes afterwards then you accept it.

Q: Is Dublin’s management change likely to make them weaker or stronger?

A: I think it’s a factor for sure. I think the job that Jim Gavin did was incredible. I think first of all as a coach and as a group of coaches, I think himself Declan Darcy and Jason Sherlock were at a serious level in terms of their coaching ability and I think the way he managed it then and he managed to keep them hungry and he managed to transition players in and out and he managed to keep them humble, you’d struggle to think of examples in any sport where a team have stayed so hungry and humble for so long so big shoes to fill. Dessie Farrell is obviously highly qualified for the job and he’ll bring his own style but he certainly has big shoes to fill.

Q: Dessie Farrell is in his first year as Dublin manager whereas Peter Keane is now in his second year as Kerry manager. Does that give him an advantage? Does it take a full year to be comfortable in the role?

A: I think with both of them, both of them have come in with not having previously been a selector. I think if you've been a selector you've a great feel for it. It's a different role obviously and there's way more involved with it. But you have that bit of experience and you have a sense of what it's all about.

But, if you come in from minors or U-20 it's a huge jump. It's an absolute massive, massive jump.

Q: Where do you feel that most?

A: Everything. The intensity of it. The level of preparation. The amount of people you're dealing with. The amount of time you're on the phone. It's just a different world. The focus that goes with it. The attention that's on it. It's just a different world. I think, to be fair, Peter probably has an advantage in that he has a year under his belt. They went to the brink last season, almost got it done the first day.

Himself, Tommy, James, they'll have gotten massive experience. Maurice and Donie obviously had a good bit of experience built up already. But the three lads that came from minor up, they've huge experience built up from last season.

Dessie Farrell will build that up this season, and, in fairness, Paul Clarke was with him the last day so he has good experience under his belt as well and it's important to have that experience with you.

Q: How big a regret of yours is it not to have beaten Dublin in the Championship during your time as Kerry manager?

A: I wouldn't say regret, I think we threw everything at them and in particular in 2013 and 2016 we gave them absolutely everything we had and they were still able to come with the answers. I don't think you can regret that. Of course you're disappointed and very disappointed at the time when you feel you were very close to them but you just have to acknowledge that on the day we gave it everything, we threw everything at them and they still had the answers. You just accept that and you move on.

Q: Was losing Mark O’Connor to the AFL a big regret?

A: Yeah, he was in with us, he was on the squad in 2016 but he had a couple of injuries that summer and he only played in fits and starts. But every time he played in the training, he excelled. Of course I would have but that's just the way it pans out. I think in terms of those minor teams, the first team that won, those lads are 24 this year. Those minor teams are starting to get to a good age. Hopefully from a Kerry perspective we'll see them starting to have a big impact this season and over the next couple of years.

Q: Was it a no-brainer to throw in David Clifford in 2018 or did you have to think hard about it?

A: No, it was a no-brainer, yeah, he was ready. It was even something I kind of thought about between the two Mayo games in 2017. I felt at the time it would have been a panic manoeuvre but I think you could have, and I still think he would have done something but no, the minute he started training with us he was ready so it was a no-brainer.

Q: How different a proposition are Kerry with a fully fit James O’Donoghue?

A: I think they're a different proposition for sure. I think the way he played the first half the last night, he just has an X factor and a bit of magic about him. Plus, you know, you can account for one or two, but, if you've a full-forward line of James, Paul (Geaney), David (Clifford)...you've quality subs to come into that too but if you're starting with the three of them then you might keep one of them quiet, two of them quiet, but it's very hard to keep the three of them quiet all of the time.

So, yeah, if Kerry can keep him fit and he can avoid injury for the year it would be huge.

Q: It looks like he and David Clifford already have a good understanding developed. Because Clifford attracts so much attention from defenders, could O’Donoghue make hay this year?

A: Absolutely. That's the way it works. Those top players, they always have that chemistry and understanding. The more they get to play together, the better.