Sheehy stresses need for patience

Kerry selector Mike Sheehy believes the county’s supporters will be patient, as the new management of Eamonn Fitzmaurice continues to trial new players. Sunday saw a second successive defeat in the league, which leaves Kerry pointless and propping up the Division One table.

“I think they probably will be. Even on Sunday I kind of got the vibes from the crowd that they were more than patient. We were playing that poorly you would expect maybe a bit of a reaction. I think they are going to be patient and I think they don’t have a choice, really.”

Working hard

“It is disappointing but I am not going to criticise these guys because they are working hard and hopefully it will turn around . . . when you replace four of your starting forwards then you do have problems.

“It is a frightening statistic from our point of view, no score in the second half against Mayo and four points over 70 minutes yesterday. That’s galling, really.”

He also expressed concern at the lack of underage success feeding into the senior system.

“It is a very poor statistic from our point of view that Kerry’s last minor was in 1994 and I think the last under-21 before 2008 was ’98.

“Even though we had a minor team that was beaten in a semi-final by Dublin last year, I think it could be a problem down the road. We won’t press the panic button quite yet, though.”

The winners of this season’s AIB provincial footballer awards have been announced: David McKenna (Crossmaglen Rangers), Brian Looney (Dr Crokes), Senan Kilbride (St Brigid’s) and Dean Rock (Ballymun Kickhams) are each being honoured for the roles played in their respective clubs’ provincial title success. The awards will be presented in Dublin on Tuesday, March 5th.