WHEN COLM COOPER announced his retirement from inter-county football back in April, it robbed the Kerry attack of a mountain of creativity and scoring threat.
Eamonn Fitzmaurice blooded a number of promising young forwards during Kerry’s successful league campaign, with Conor Geaney, Conor Keane, Jack Savage, Kevin McCarthy, Adrian Spillane and Denis Daly all logging minutes in the spring.
But Kerry still lacked a partner-in-crime for Paul Geaney in attack. Geaney, the only Kerry player to win an All-Star last year, scored 3-41 of the 6-124 tally in the league, a contribution of 35% of their total.
The big issue for Kerry was danger of Geaney being shut down by the opposition defence. Who would take up the scoring mantle?
Thankfully for Fitzmaurice, James O’Donoghue’s return to form on Sunday solves a major headache in the Kingdom attack.
O’Donoghue posted 0-9 in a man-of-the-match display after slowing working his way into the game. The Legion poacher suffered few years blighted by injury since his Footballer of the Year winning campaign of 2014, the year of Kerry’s last All-Ireland triumph.
“He’s a fierce important player for Kerry,” Tomás Ó Sé told Des Cahill on the Sunday Game last night.
“They need him going well. You’ve Paul Geaney inside, if Paul gets injured…Inter-county teams will be saying, ‘If you negate Paul Geaney who’s going to score?’
“It’s very important now we’ve lost the Gooch. He’s the guy that I think can have a very important season this year. He’s been out with injury a lot. Hopefully he’ll stay away from injury because he’s a big-time player when he gets going.”
'He's a big-time player when he gets going' - The Sunday Game panel reflect on the performance of James O'Donoghue against Clare pic.twitter.com/5u1kzZ6mKZ
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) June 11, 2017
After his breakout campaign three years ago, O’Donoghue’s woes started when he was forced to have a shoulder operation two months after they lifted the All-Ireland title in 2014.
That ruled him out for the entirety of Kerry’s 2015 league campaign, and he returned as a sub in the Munster semi-final against Tipperary before aggravating the same shoulder in the All-Ireland quarter-final.
He made it back into action for the semi-final and final against Tyrone and Dublin respectively, but failed to catch fire like the previous season.
O’Donoghue popped out his other shoulder while lining out for Legion in December 2015. Surgery followed and an extensive period of rehabilitation ruled him out for the entirety of 2016 league.
He started just one championship game that summer – Kerry’s All-Ireland quarter-final win over Clare.
While his shoulder worries cleared up in 2017, an ankle complaint in January ruled O’Donoghue out of the McGrath Cup final in January.
He returned for the beginning of the league before a calf problem forced the 26-year-old to miss Kerry’s final three league games.
After an injury-plagued couple of years, O’Donoghue was thrilled to get 70 minutes under the belt.
“Just before the game, even warming up, I was delighted to be there knowing my body was in a good place,” he told Newstalk’s Oisin Langan after the game. “Obviously my football has a lot of work to do but that’s what the summer is there for.
“Once you get the body right, the head right, the football will come and we should be in a good place.
“I didn’t really think about it too much. When you’re out you’re just looking to play. You just want to play, play, play. I mean, there’s demons as well because you’re not playing well, you’re up against it, you’re niggly.
“You’ve just got to get out and put the minutes out on the field. Luckily we got a good run of club games this year. We got six or seven games in and it was a good run up to championship for me personally.”
The corner-forward fired over four points from play, including three in the second-half. Kerry ran out six point winners, with a Munster final against the Rebels to look forward to.
“I got tired there in the second-half,” he continued. “Again a championship campaign, I haven’t played a championship campaign in a long time. Or a league one really. I’ll take that excuse today. I missed a free in front of the goal and things, the legs were just heavy.
“I’ll work. I’ve a lot of work to do and I will do it. I’ll be fine.
“We’re not getting carried away with this. We’ve a very tough Munster final to come.”
Off The Ball / SoundCloud
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