As one NFL draws to a close this weekend, another begins: Gaelic football's Allianz leagues swing into action, with tomorrow's stand-out games being the repeat of the 2o14 All-Ireland final, between Donegal and Kerry.
Ahead of that game, Kerry manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice sat down for a great interview with Keith Duggan of the Irish Times. In what is ostensibly a chat looking ahead to the year ahead, the Kerry manager spent much of the interview looking back at the last few years.
He says the 2015 All-Ireland final defeat beneath the capital's sluicing rain is the loss that has haunted him the most, and told Duggan that he regrets some decisions made ahead of that final meeting with Dublin.
As per usual, Kerry's 2015 summer consisted mostly of waiting around, and Fitzmaurice admits he would, had he the chance to turn back time, change the training schedule during Kerry's four-week wait for the final against Dublin.
They had four weeks to prepare for the final. They decided to train the Tuesday and the Friday for the first week and then give the team the weekend off.
"We trained hard the Friday night. Too hard, I think". Then Dublin and Mayo drew so they still didn't know their opposition. "We trained the following Saturday, which was a mistake. We should have trained on the Sunday when we would have known our opposition was".
Fitzmaurice did admit that during an A versus B game bathed in sunlight on the weekend before the final the Kerry forwards were in cracking form, only for the subsequent shoulder to injury to James O'Donoghue, and the subsequent biblical Croke Park deluge to prove fatally disruptive.
It's a fine interview, and it's in today's Irish Times.
