No Kerry retirements envisaged

After a week of high-profile managerial appointments the process of completing inter-county backroom staff continues. While new Kerry football manager Jack O'Connor is set to add a physical trainer to his selection team of Ger O'Keeffe and Johnny Culloty, the new Tipperary and Clare hurling managements will take full responsibility for all their team preparations.

Though appointed last Monday night, the new Kerry management have yet to finalise a team trainer. According to O'Keeffe, the former All-Ireland winner with Kerry who previously worked with O'Connor at under-21 level, the man they are most likely to target is Pat Flanagan, a former Irish sprint champion who now lectures at Tralee IT.

"We will be sitting down together very soon," says O'Keeffe, "to outline in detail the way forward. Part of that will be appointing a team trainer, which hasn't been confirmed yet, but Pat would obviously be someone that we will be considering.

"The other priority of the coming weeks will be sitting down with the players, because it's important to know from the start what they want from us, and we want from them."

O'Keeffe doesn't envisage any player retirements in light of the end of the Páidí Ó Sé era. If anything the new management might try to coax one player - Maurice Fitzgerald - out of retirement.

"My view is that we should welcome any player into the panel. We haven't made any contact with Maurice yet, and it's very hard to know how interested he would be in playing senior football again, or exactly how fit he would be. He might not be the same player he was in 1997, but we are still looking for the best players in the county."

At aged 33, Fitzgerald hasn't appeared for Kerry since the championship of 2001, although he continues to show sparks of his old form at club level. In the meantime, O'Keeffe is clearly enthusiastic about working at senior level for the first time with O'Connor and also Culloty,

"I know Jack has his feet firmly on the ground coming into this job. He has a great football brain, he knows what is necessary, and I know as well this is a job he always wanted."

In Tipperary, the appointment of Ken Hogan as hurling manager and Jack Bergin and Colm Bonnar as selectors will complete the management line-up, as will Anthony Daly - and his selectors Alan Cunningham and Fr Harry Bohan - with the Clare hurlers.

Both Hogan and Bonner have plenty of experience on the training side of hurling management, with Hogan acting as team trainer for the first two years of his term as selector under Nicky English, while Bonner - who will take the general training responsibilities - has been more recently involved on the training side of things through his work at Waterford IT.

Their appointment brings an end to the work of Jim Kilty, the athletics-coaching specialist who acted as Tipperary trainer for the past three years. He was brought into the Tipperary set-up by English in 2001, helping to design the fitness programme that saw Tipperary collect the All-Ireland title later that year.

Kilty, however, is now likely to be targeted by other counties. "The last three years were a big learning experience for me," he says, "but there are techniques that I could still see developed further, especially in football."

For Daly, the former All-Ireland winning captain with Clare, most of the physical training responsibilities will be handed to Cunningham, who last year acted as under-21 manager and also holds a PE degree. Cunningham also has the experience of coaching the Wolfe Tones club to the Clare county title in 1996, and on to the Munster title.

"The management team appointed on Wednesday night have been entrusted with all aspects of the Clare hurling preparations for 2004," explains Clare press officer Des Crowe.

"They can come back and seek approval for a team trainer if they want, but that hasn't been suggested, nor expected. Between the three they have all the training experience that is necessary."

The recommendation for the new Dublin senior hurling manager, meanwhile, is to be made by a four-man committee of county chairman John Bailey, secretary John Costello, former manager Michael O'Grady, and the director of hurling, Diarmuid Healy.

For the time being, Mick O'Riordan and Tom Ryan, who both acted as selectors under previous manager Marty Morris - who resigned earlier this month - have been appointed as caretaker managers.

It will be several weeks before any recommendation comes before the county board.