There is optimism in Kerry ahead of this year's football season says Tomás Ó Sé but he wonders how solid are its foundations.
Following Kerry's exit at last year's All-Ireland Super 8s stage, Eamonn Fitzmaurice stepped down as manager. Three-time All-Ireland winning minor manager Peter Keane was then appointed as his successor in October.
"There's talk about Donie Buckley and what Peter Keane achieved with the minors, the relationship he had with the young players and how much time they had for him," the five-time All-Ireland winner said at the launch of the Gourmet Food Parlour HEC Ladies Football Championships.
I think there is a buzz down there, yeah, but nobody knows what's going to happen. You could argue certain cases but the reality was that Kerry weren't up to it. I'm not going to be naming players but Kerry were not up to it last year, they were not good enough in the latter stages of the championship.
I think Kerry are being bandied about as the team to take Dublin off their perch - if any team will - and I'm saying where the fuck is that coming from like because they didn't even get the fuckin' chance to go against them last year.
In particular, Ó Sé has worries about the Kerry defence.
"Look, you can boil it down to a couple of sentences in Kerry: the young lads coming through are doing outstandingly well. Only for them, we would have lost to Monaghan last year [in the Super 8s].
"I think the facts - and I don't like basing things on facts - they show that Kerry were too easy to score against and have been too easy to score against.
"You go back to the last game against Kildare and until [Neil] Flynn got sent off, Kerry were on the rack and badly on the rack; Kildare were running through them. Maybe we don't have the defenders right, but look at what [Brian] Fenton does around the middle of the field, look what Mannion does - I'm not saying Kerry don't do it, they did it against Cork - but the tackle rate after that went down.
"Kerry have to focus on the league and let Peter Keane put his mark on things. I still think there's a couple of players coming through and there's young players.
"Diarmuid O'Connor is a player I've been hearing good things about and he's getting a good run inside there at the moment. Crokes [still being in the All-Ireland Club Championship] will hamper them. They have a couple of injuries but everybody's in the same boat."
GFP Ambassador and former Kerry footballer Tomás Ó Sé in attendance at the launch of the Gourmet Food Parlour HEC Ladies Football Championships at Gourmet Food Parlour’s Northwood, Santry outlet. Gourmet Food Parlour are the official sponsors of the HEC Ladies Football third-level Championships. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
