Business as usual for Moynihan

Those who witnessed Séamus Moynihan in action against Dublin last Sunday were soon marvelling at his unmistakable vigour and trademark spring in his step.

Nothing too unusual about that, except this was a player who had missed all of Kerry's league campaign to date, and whose last competitive match was the All-Ireland defeat to Tyrone over sixth months previous.

Although he opted off the Kerry panel for several weeks, he'd stuck rigidly to a personal training plan, including some specialist work with Ger Hartmann. Yet that doesn't fully explain his excitable energy levels in Killarney last Sunday.

What wasn't so well known by those who witnessed him in action was that Moynihan had also celebrated the birth of his first child the day before. His newborn son Jamie was obviously a fresh inspiration, and that helps explain his rapid return to form.

After the game, Moynihan got further good news when Kerry realised their draw with Dublin was enough to send them through to the semi-finals, which takes the form of another home match against Laois in Killarney this Sunday. Moynihan's return then couldn't have been better timed.

"The main reason I started on Sunday was because Mike McCarthy was out injured with a broken finger," he explains, "and I suppose that fast forwarded my return. I hadn't really planned on starting the game, but we were a little short of players. And I suppose it's as easy to start a game as it is to come on, and if things didn't go well they could always have taken me off."

When it was revealed at the start of the season that Moynihan wouldn't be involved with Kerry during the early rounds of the league the rumours started. Soon afterwards Dara Ó Cinnéide announced his retirement at the age of 30, and was followed by Liam Hassett. At 32, and easily one of the most decorated players of his generation, was Moynihan perhaps considering retirement too? "No, definitely not," he says. "I had spoken with Jack O'Connor earlier in the year and he knew exactly where I stood. He knew that I was working away myself on the nights that I wasn't with them, but then over the last five or six weeks I did get back in with them as much as I could.

"There were just a lot of things going on in my life outside of football. I was building my own house for a start, and then we were also expecting our first child at the time. I was also very tied up with work. So there was nothing more to it than that, just simply the fact that I wasn't able to give the full commitment to all the training and the travelling, especially going away to games at weekends. But I suppose I always envisaged that I would be back towards the end of the league campaign anyway."

Moynihan had little difficulty maintaining his fitness, not when his enthusiasm and self-motivation runs so high. Although he does fall into the older category of footballers, having made his senior debut for Kerry in the Munster final of 1992, the three-time All-Ireland winner, with two All Stars and a footballer of the year award in 2000, still has some unfilled ambitions.

Winning another league title is the immediate one. First of all though Kerry need to get past Laois, and Moynihan believes that's exactly the kind of challenge the team need at this time of the year.

"I definitely think a good league campaign is very important. First of all this game on Sunday gives us another great chance to test ourselves. Otherwise we wouldn't have been out until the championship, against Waterford. So another competitive game of this sort is fantastic.

The Kerry-Laois meeting is also a novel pairing, not least of all because of a certain Mick O'Dwyer on the sideline: "We haven't played them much since Micko came in, but a lot of this Kerry team would know them well from underage competitions. They've had a huge conveyor belt of players coming through the past seven or eight years, and I think the team they have right now is really maturing into a fine team. They've had some big results this year, like going up to Crossmaglen and winning. They're a very fast, mobile team, so we know this is a massive test for us now."

He probably won't have the excitement of last Sunday, but with summer coming on fast, it's clear that Moynihan is now open for business as usual. "Well I really enjoyed going out again last Sunday. Obviously it still doesn't get much bigger than playing Dublin, especially in Killarney. There's always a bit of excitement, and it was great to be back playing on a day like that, especially playing injury free."