Kerry’s Paul Geaney relishing competition with Gooch and Walsh return

It’s not often an All-Ireland winning full-forward, a 24-year-old one who consistently performed to a high level along the impressive route to glory; is then asked in January how confident he is of retaining his place for the following year’s campaign.

Such is the competition within the Kerry forward line this coming year though, with talisman Colm 'Gooch' Cooper returning from his cruciate injury and former All Star Tommy Walsh back from his AFL career, that nobody can be absolutely certain of a starting jersey.

Nonetheless according to Paul Geaney, talking during a press conference for the 2015 Allianz Leagues on Monday, the increased pressure upon his starting berth “is pressure, but it’s a good pressure.”

The UCC student was quick to remind us that up as far as last September’s All-Ireland final he was never 100 per cent certain of his starting place during what was his breakthrough season, so the constant competition will be nothing from the entirely unknown, albeit he concedes the heat will clearly be notched up a few degrees in 2015.

For the Kingdom though, off-the-back of last year's All-Ireland success, it's easy to forget that Eamonn Fitzmaurice's team were far from impressive during last year's league campaign. The plan this year though, while it may be to replicate their championship campaign, an improved league standing is an outright target. Starting with this coming Sunday's opener against Mayo.

“We’re looking forward to getting the ball rolling this weekend and hopefully we can improve on last year’s league which was poor and we were lucky to stay up” he said. “This year hopefully we can reach the semi-final and win it.”

Geaney was joined by Mayo's Seamus O'Shea, Armagh manager Kieran McGeeney and Kildare manager Jason Ryan at the football league press conference which was streamed live on the GAA's official website. Uncharted territory of sorts for press conferences of this kind in the GAA, and a positive new aspect to add to the coverage of our national games for the season ahead.