O'Connor lines up opposition for Kerry

News round-up: New Kerry football manager Jack O'Connor has lined up two challenge matches to partly compensate for the county's non-involvement in any early season competition.

First up will be a challenge game next weekend against Galway, who themselves have opted out of similar competition this season.

The provinces are in various stages of their early season competitions, but Kerry don't take part in Munster's McGrath Cup, the semi-finals of which take place this Sunday.

Yet, O'Connor has already got Kerry's league and championship preparations well under way, including a week's training break in Lanzorote, which concluded last Saturday.

"I suppose not playing any competitive games before the league starts could be seen as a bit of a drawback," says O'Connor.

"Hopefully, we can make up for it on the training pitch and with a couple of challenge matches. We have this game planned against Galway, and we also plan to play An Ghaeltacht before the league starts."

O'Connor also felt it important to establish a good player-manager relationship before taking to the competitive playing field. Along with selectors Ger O'Keeffe and Johnny Culloty, he found limited opportunities to get to know all the players prior to Christmas, which was the prime reason for the trip to Lanzorote.

"The trip was my own idea," he says, "a way of getting us all together. We hadn't been together much before Christmas. So it was a good way of getting everyone tuned in after the break. And it worked out very well. Most of all it was an opportunity to get everyone together, which was important for me when starting out as manager. And also get in a little bit of training."

Since his appointment last November, O'Connor has also added Pat Flanagan to his backroom team, who will act as team trainer and take over the general physical preparations, previously carried out by John O'Keeffe with O'Connor's predecessor, Páidí Ó Sé. Flanagan, who was Irish 100 metres champion in 1980, has considerable experience in fitness training, and currently lectures in Tralee IT.

Kerry open their league campaign away to Longford on February 1st. In the meantime, O'Connor will continue to operate with an open-ended panel. Several younger players have already been introduced, and some travelled to Lanzorote.

"We have put together a panel, but it's only a training panel. We've have brought in a couple of young players, but there's no one definitely in or out at the moment, and we'll keep it that way during the league. And we won't be finalising a panel for this year until before the championship. And because a few older players weren't able to travel with us, we had five new lads out there with us as well and it gave us a good chance to look at them."

Another new manager in the process of developing a new football panel is Tipperary's Andy Shortall, although he hasn't wasted any time in putting his own stamp on team selections.

Sunday's McGrath Cup semi-final against Clare marks their first competitive outing of the season, and Shortall's first team shows seven changes from their last competitive outing, the All-Ireland qualifier against Donegal last July.

Among those changes is the introduction of new team captain Michael Tarrant, who plays at midfield, and who last year helped Cahir to the Tipperary football title. All Star Declan Browne also lines out in his familiar full forward position.

TIPPERARY (SF v Clare): P Ryan; S Collum, D Byrne, B Hahessy; P Hally, T Russell, N Fitzgerald; K Mulryan, M Tarrant; G Burke, A Fitzgerald, J Williams; T Doyle, D Browne, D O'Brien.