O'Sullivan gets first start for Kerry

GAELIC GAMES: Jack O'Connor has settled on just one attacking alteration for Sunday's Munster football semi-final clash from the Kerry team that beat Waterford three weeks ago - giving Darren O'Sullivan his first championship start at right corner forward, having made a strong impression when introduced three weeks ago.

Centre forward Eamonn Fitzmaurice drops to the bench, with Eoin Brosnan moving from the wing into that position, while Declan O'Sullivan moves back to the other wing forward position.

Bryan Sheehan now starts at full forward, with Colm Cooper staying in the other corner.

Like any sporting record, the longer an unbeaten run is extended the more likely it is to be broken. Kerry haven't lost a championship football match to Tipperary since 1928, which suggests two things ahead of Sunday's tie in Killarney - Kerry are poised to win again, and, if they don't, it will be one of the upsets of the century.

O'Conner faces this scenario every time his team head out against one of the so-called weaker counties. It was practically the same against Waterford in the Munster quarter-final.

Kerry were equally fancied to win that one, which they did, but only after struggling a little with Waterford's enthusiasm and desire to match their more revered rivals.

"That's the thing," says O'Connor. "I think we've all seen over the past few Sundays how the so-called lesser teams have raised their game against the stronger counties, and really tested them. So that's something to be very wary of.

"So, of course, we taking Sunday very seriously, and see it as a serious challenge. But it's as much about ourselves as it is what Tipperary might do, because we're only focused on getting our performance right, and improving on the last day."

In the end, Kerry's eight-point win over Waterford was decisive without at all being convincing. They were just two points clear early in the second half, with Waterford having also missed a penalty, and looked to be digging deep to pull out the win.

O'Connor has had time to reflect, and now makes two observations. "I've said it before that I was disappointed with the way we played against Waterford, but, in hindsight, maybe we didn't give Waterford the credit they deserved for the way they played against us that day.

"They certainly gave a fine account of themselves, and played some very good football. But we still felt we didn't play to our best. But then we had just won the National League a few weeks before, and I was very happy with that. It was important to win. We'd taken some time off after that, and had ready just gone back into the hard training. So we've moved on again now and we're determined to play better on Sunday."

Tipperary don't have the advantage of a previous championship match this summer. They enjoyed a moderate league run in Division Two, falling short of promotion, but are at least far better off than two summers ago when they opted out of the qualifiers.

Their chief scoring threat remains full forward Declan Browne, who hit 0-9 when the sides met last year - and Kerry won 2-22 to 0-13.

Given that history, O'Connor could be forgiven for having one eye down the road and the Munster final on July 9th against either Cork or Limerick.

Kerry certainly don't want to be peaking for Sunday, but then O'Connor has always said peaking is too abstract a word to enter his football vocabulary. "You just can't afford to get ahead of yourself. That's a dangerous game."

Meanwhile, Fermanagh have delayed until tomorrow evening the finalising of their team to face Armagh in the Ulster semi-final at Clones.

KERRY (SF v Tipperary): D Murphy; A O'Mahony, M Ó Sé, T O'Sullivan; T Ó Sé, S Moynihan, M Lyons; D Ó Sé, K Donaghy; Declan O'Sullivan, E Brosnan, P Galvin; Darren O'Sullivan, B Sheehan, C Cooper.