COLM COOPER FEELS his quick transition into TV punditry will help soften the blow of his inter-county retirement.
It’s been just over a month since Cooper’s decision to call time on his Kerry career was made public, and last Friday it was announced that he was signing on as an analyst with The Sunday Game for the summer.
“There was interest from the guys here in RTE to come on board,” said Cooper. “I would have been watching the matches anyway and analysing them, so why not share some of that with the public?
“It’ll be interesting to see it from the guys in the studio’s point of view as well because when you’re on the other side you mightn’t always agree with what they say so, yeah, it’s interesting. Hopefully I can bring something different to it and the way I see and perceive things.”
Cooper has welcomed the distraction of his new punditry role and hopes it will help him adjust to life after Kerry.
“That will make things a little bit easier. I think if I was idle, lying around feeling sorry for myself thinking, ‘Should I be playing with Kerry?’ and things like that, it might be different.
“But the fact that I’d have such interest in games and from being in the studio and analysing things, I think that will hopefully make things easier. I think you have to be honest as fair as well. It’s not my style to be sticking the boot into anyone anyway.
“I’m there to analyse the match and give my opinion. I don’t get a kick out of sticking the knife into anyone. It’s to make sense of the matches and the players.
“I made plenty of mistakes in matches too but when you’re there to analyse you’ve to call that out sometimes and whether that’s a Kerry, Dublin, Mayo or Sligo player, that’s my job to do now.”
The Dr Crokes forward says he didn’t travel to Kerry’s league final win over Dublin as he “just didn’t feel right going up to Croke Park.”
Instead he watched the game from the comfort of his home and admits he was animated as the Kingdom ended Dublin’s unbeaten run.
“I watched it at home, it was strange,” said Cooper. “I normally don’t shout at the television but I was shouting that day. That was confirmation that I’m certainly a supporter and I’m gone from all that stuff so that’s what I am now, I’m a supporter.”
While he agrees the victory will give Kerry confidence, he also urged caution for Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s men as they head into the championship.
“I think it’s going to give them great confidence. I think they needed to beat Dublin. When you look at the final, Kerry needed to win that more than Dublin to give them confidence and for the younger players as well, none of them had beaten Dublin.
“Kerry aren’t foolish enough to think that a league win catches up with Dublin in any way. They’re still going to be the formidable champions that they are.
“They can say, ‘Yes, we can compete and now we know we can beat them’. So if you bring into the mix James O’Donoghue, Shane Enright and Killian Young have to come into the squad, that gives them a much stronger squad.
“But the other side of that is it’s going to make Dublin hungry too and they won’t like to have been beaten by Kerry. Their record of 36 games, they’ll feel they’ve a bone to pick with Kerry later on in the year if that fixture arises.
“Let’s not kid ourselves to think a league win makes up for two All-Ireland semi-finals and two All-Ireland finals.Kerry will want to beat Dublin the championship, the same as everybody else.
“We know better than anyone, when you’re the All-Ireland champions, you’re there to be shot at and Dublin very much are there. Will teams be good enough to beat them? We’ll find out. But I’m not too sure the rivalry is flipped in any shape or form as it stands.”
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