Kieran Donaghy caps the big comeback with September award

Bill Clinton called himself the 'Comeback Kid' for less. Kerry's Kieran Donaghy, who yesterday, with Kilkenny hurler Richie Power, was named one of the GAA/GPA All Stars Players of the Month for September, readily concedes he hasn't had a really big display in Croke Park since the 2011 All-Ireland final.

That was partly inspired by then Kerry manager Jack O'Connor, who put down his full forward by referring to that year's semi-final against Mayo. Donaghy explains.

“I was having a bit of a go that we needed to up training and he fired that back at me and put me back in my box fairly quickly. Jack said there were five balls kicked in between yourself and Cafferkey and you won f*** all of them!

“It doesn’t matter whether you play well, nobody remembers the losers in the final unfortunately,” he says of the final defeat three years ago by Dublin. “That was a proud moment for myself because I was under pressure going into it.”

Risk turnovers

In the years that followed Kerry declined and, bedevilled by injury, Donaghy’s trademark game as the high-fielding full forward with quick feet and even quicker hands began to look obsolete – he believes that the possession game made players more reluctant to risk turnovers by playing early ball into him – to the extent that for much of this year he was a reserve centrefielder, his original position with the county.

Manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s epiphany came in the form of an ultimatum: 66 minutes gone in this year’s semi-final against a Mayo team reduced to 14 and five points in arrears. Donaghy had come on as a replacement for centrefielder Anthony Maher but by now had taken up a familiar posting on the edge of the square.

A great ball in from David Moran was caught and dextrously recycled to James O'Donoghue and the goal became the centrepiece of an unlikely recovery.

The rest was a triumph. Donaghy started the semi-final replay and the All-Ireland final and scored goals in both. But rewind just one round and having waited and waited in vain to be brought into the quarter-final win over Galway, the former Footballer of the Year thought his career was over.

Top level

Asked yesterday had he been concerned that his season was over or that he was at the end of the line as an inter-county player, he replied:

“Probably the career, really. The career was probably on the line. If I can’t get into the team I’m not going to be playing so my career is finished at the top level so that’s where I was at.”

Helped to put it behind him by family – even his grandmother telling him he should have been brought on against Galway – Donaghy hadn't long to wait before the semi-final and in the interim manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice had encouraging words.

“In fairness to Eamonn he explained it. He’s to make hard calls but he made them with the honesty of his leadership through the group and he gave it his best shot. He said, ‘I may have made a mistake not putting you in against Galway. That’s a mistake. You have to keep going – we’ll need you yet.’ That kept me going.”

He said back in February, when retirements and a cruciate injury had removed three former Footballers of the Year from the Kerry panel, there was a daunting realisation of what lay ahead.

"The fear was, you're going out into a championship game without Colm Cooper for the first time so that brings its initial challenges. You're after losing two warriors in Tomás Ó Sé and Paul Galvin.

Dark pitches

“That’s all happening in the depths of winter when you’re running around on dark pitches and you’re losing guys and all of a sudden you’re thinking, ‘this is going to be hard, hard’ and that definitely crossed my mind. I never said we’d no chance but I knew this is going to be hard.”

Nor has he any plans to call it a day. With Cooper and Darran O'Sullivan back to full fitness and Tommy Walsh returning from AFL club Sydney Swans, there will be plenty of competition in next season's attack.

“So he’ll (O’Sullivan) be coming back savage hungry and Colm will bring his own thing to it. Tommy’s coming back with expertise in fitness and weights and I’m going to latch onto him because he’s in unbelievable shape. I wasn’t in the best shape coming into this year. When I couldn’t run I felt the weights make me stronger . . .

“He’s my size, a big man and they’ve been training him, drilling him for the past few years so latching on to him will be my way of trying to get back into shape for next year, you know.

“Retiring might be a bit of an easier thing to do but while the body’s good and I feel I can help, I’ll play.”

Kieran Donaghy will be holding the ‘Be A Star’ basketball camp from 28th-31st October in the Mitchels GAA clubhouse in Tralee.