Kerrigan a fan of champions

THIS Sunday sees the start of the Leinster football championship proper. The preliminaries over, the first round gets underway with a double bill at Navan. In the eyes of most people, All-Ireland champions Dublin are overwhelming favourites to win a fifth successive Leinster title.

One man with an ideal perspective on the province is Mattie Kerrigan who coached the Leinster team which broke Ulster's stranglehold on the Railway Cup football competition this year - the first time a province has taken it south since 1988.

Kerrigan, a former Meath All-Ireland medallist, was a major influence on his county's under-age successes in recent years and also managed Westmeath's footballers for three years up to last summer. He currently coaches, recruits and organises with his own club, Summerhill.

He too is impressed with the reigning champions. "From the Railway Cup, I was impressed with the Dublin players. I'd have had more of them playing but they were on holidays for the first match. The only one I took in was Eamonn Heery who wasn't part of the trip. And I took some stick from other counties for picking him. They said he wouldn't be up to it after being out for so long - although any of them would have him on their own teams. He was, very good."

Previewing the first round matches, he sees Dublin (who play Westmeath), Louth (who play Offaly), Meath (who play, Carlow) and Kildare (who play Laois) coming through.

"I had three players from Louth: Garret O'Neill, Seamus O'Hanlon and Colin Kelly. They're physically a strong side but the only problem is in the forwards. Kelly will score a certain amount but he needs the back-up to be free-scoring.

"I would be most wary of Offaly - of all counties - if they get going because as a county they've such a good spirit, if you get anywhere under the surface. Last year, they had Meath in all sorts of trouble for 25 minutes but didn't maintain the effort, made a couple of mistakes and stopped playing.

"It would be a major shock if Westmeath beat Dublin. I expect Westmeath to give them a good run but Dublin, with an All-Ireland under their belt will be different this year. We (Leinster) played them in a challenge at the start of the year and they were up for it - and we had four of their players."

Three years ago, Kerrigan managed the Westmeath team that lost to Dublin by nine points, the margin being the product of late slippage. "We didn't have the physical strength to nail them over 70 minutes," says Kerrigan.

On the subject of the closest looking tie of the round, Laois/Kildare, Kerrigan sees flaws in both teams but prefers Kildare and certainly doesn't see them beating Meath into third place in the province. "If Meath and Kildare go into battle, although Meath are not settled, I'd still back them.

"There were a couple of Kildare players (on the Leinster team): Glen Ryan is a quality footballer and Christy Byrne their goalkeeper is very good. Kildare look the form team in Leinster, apart from Dublin, and they've players like Martin Lynch, Niall Buckley, Ryan and Davy Dalton, although on the hard ground Davy suffered a bit last year.

"Once you go beyond their top-five or six though, I'd have reservations. They're playing well in challenge matches but there's a looseness in those matches that's not there in the championship and I'd have overall doubts.

"In Meath, Laois would have been seen as a danger team but they haven't delivered. Again, they've some good players. I used Emmet Burke as sub goalkeeper, Denis Lalor who's an excellent footballer and Tony Maher. He's a great bit of stuff.

"I know that some people in Laois think he can be a bit hard to control but I told him to go out and play as hard as he could because there's no point in holding back someone like that, you'd stifle him completely. He was great for us.

"Hugh Emerson has great qualities but I don't think he's an out-and-out forward, more of a mid fielder. But Laois are moderate otherwise.

"At the end of the day, I don't see anyone beating Dublin. They're the first team (in Leinster) by a good length which is not normal for a Meathman to say. But Meath are next. They weren't 10 points worse than Dublin last year but threw in the towel a little bit which was disappointing.

"I see Meath with three main forwards. Graham Geraghty is going to play there. I've been saying that for a while and played him there for Leinster. He was outstanding in the Railway Cup final. Trevor Giles has been playing in the half forwards and so has Tommy Dowd.

"Carlow played some good football but against Wicklow, Hugh Kenny (Wicklow's full-back) didn't look well and a couple of the goals came through" him. He played brilliantly on Colin Corkery in the Railway Cup final and just didn't look right against Carlow. I expect them to give Meath a battle but if they concede 3-10, there's going to be a big margin, because Meath aren't going to let them score 4-10."