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Eamonn Fitzmaurice.
LAST weekend, Tomas Ó Sé described Eamonn Fitzmaurice as ‘the master of the remote control’ and that the Kerry boss’s attention to detail when it comes to video analysis is the key to his success as a manager.
Kildare are the next side in this year’s championship Fitzmaurice will run his eye over, but the Finuge man is mindful of not overdoing the pre-game preparation for Kildare.
“We’ll do some video analysis, but we’re not going to murder it either,” said Fitzmaurice at a press briefing earlier this week.
“The Cork [v Kildare] game is the relevant one, because they played so well in it. They’ve improved a good bit since the Leinster semi-final defeat to Dublin and they’ve got great momentum now,” he said.
“I think that’s a danger, coming into a quarter-final that you can murder the video analysis, from the point of view that there is a lot of footage there. Kildare have a good few games played – they have six games played – so you could overly complicate it.”
“It’s about getting the balance right. All the lads would have watched the game on Saturday, they’d have a good appreciation of Kildare’s strengths already and we’ll reinforce that tomorrow evening in training.”
Fitzmaurice, is wary of the momentum Kildare have gathered through the qualifiers.
Since exiting the Leinster championship, at the hands of Laois after a replay, the Lilywhites got the show back on the road, first overcoming Offaly, then by going on to beat both Longford and Cork comprehensively.
“They (Kildare) have serious momentum and when you have momentum like that, fellas grow. There is confidence I imagine in the Kildare camp. They’ll have no fear. They’ll be saying ‘bring on Kerry’ and they’re in a position where no one is going to give them a chance of winning the game.
“A team in that kind of situation, coming in after taking a big scalp, full of running and full of fearlessness can be very dangerous.”
“In Kerry this week there won’t be any overconfidence. Everyone will be saying this is a game we have to be very careful of. We really have to bring our A-game and if we don’t we’ll be beaten. It’s fairly black and white to me. If we play like we can play it will take a good team to beat us, but if we’re off, this time next week, we won’t have to be worrying about any more press conferences.”
• Eamonn Fitzmaurice will name the starting 15 for the All-Ireland SFC quarter-final on Thursday night at 9pm. Traleetoday.ie will have the team as soon as it is announced.
Kildare beat Laois after a replay & exited the Leinster Championship to Dublin