Latest news with #ÉamonnFitzmaurice
RTÉ News
19-05-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Mayo soul searching in 'no brakes' football championship
The group stage of the football championship is barely underway, however, this year's All-Ireland campaign looks set to be one of the most open and unpredictable in recent years. Meath have already turned Dublin over, before losing out to Louth in the Leinster final, while the hotly tipped Connacht kingpins, Galway, proved second best on Saturday, getting beaten by the rejuvenated Jacks. And not to mention Cavan joining the conversation with an emphatic victory over Mayo at MacHale Park in their opening Group 1 encounter. On the flip side, Kerry maintained the status quo by signalling their intent with a ten-point victory over Roscommon. "This year, with everything that is going on, there is a freshness and uncertainty about it," said Éamonn Fitzmaurice, speaking on this week's RTE GAA Podcast. "Where are Galway at, because of the way Mayo played, where are Meath at because of the way Dublin played, where are Louth at because they beat Meath. "Down's performance in Clare, where does that put them? Where are Kerry at? You know you can go down this rabbit hole and wonder what it means. "I think what it emphasises for the next couple of weeks is that it is like old-style championship football where we are just going to have to take it on its merits." And the former Kerry boss expects the trend to continue throughout the summer, which will lead to a more competitive, and as a result, more exciting championship with teams unable to coast through the group stages. Three out of four teams go through from each group, however, there will now be a real emphasis on teams winning their respective tables with the uncertainty of what might lie ahead in the preliminary quarter-finals, which see the second and third-placed teams going head to head. "Teams are going to take points off each other, teams are going to beat each other, we're going to get the surprise results," added Fitzmaurice. "It's great for the championship, it's great for us looking on that there isn't a predictability about out it, there isn't a procession about it, there isn't anything about teams pulling handbrakes or anything else because on any given weekend teams are going to beat each other, which is great and exciting." Following Sunday's defeat, Mayo now look like they will need to take points from both of their remaining games against two of the strongest sides in the country, Tyrone and Donegal, while they also have to contend with having a worse head-to-head with Cavan should it come down to it after the round robin stage. And while Fitzmaurice feels that Mayo have put themselves in a really tough position, he does feel that they have the experience of overcoming adversity, which could prove vital. "From a Mayo perspective, it was a serious defeat, and their record hasn't been great in MacHale Park over the last couple of years," he said. "It is very Mayo-like to get themselves into these situations and dig themselves out of it, but at the same time, they are away to Tyrone next and have Donegal coming in their last game, so there are no easy games. "And just the fact that they were so far off it yesterday, there is going to be a good bit of soul searching for them. "They are going to have to dig deep again, they are good at it but they have to dig deep." Fitzmaurice was, however, impressed with Cavan, who he felt were a side transformed from their under-par defeat in the Ulster championship last month. "You have to give a lot of credit to Cavan," said Fitmaurice. "I was at their game against Tyrone and they weren't at it at all that day. Tactically, they weren't at it, they had a lot of under-par performances from the players, and they looked unfit and didn't look like they were not at the required level. "I heard last night that they did do a good bit of fitness work over the last couple of weeks, and you could see that they were full of running and a lot of the scores came from hard running and support play higher up the pitch. "They were impressive and deserve massive credit for righting the ship after that performance in Ulster five weeks ago."
RTÉ News
05-05-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Éamonn Fitzmaurice: Kerry in better form than 12 months ago
Former Kerry player and manager Éamonn Fitzmaurice feels the Kingdom's leading players are in better form than 12 months ago. On Sunday, the league champions rustled up four first-half goals to wrap up their latest Munster title quickly, easing off the throttle in the second half to win by 11 points. It was a fifth provincial title on the spin and an 86th overall - though most Kerry supporters stopped keeping count of Munster SFC victories a long time ago - and confirms their presence in Group 2 of the All-Ireland series, alongside Cork, Roscommon and the Leinster final runners-up, a relatively untaxing group when set alongside Groups 1 and 4. Jack O'Connor's side have now scored 24 goals across 10 games in league and championship, with David Clifford - subdued for much of the 2024 season - notching 2-05 against Clare, while Seanie O'Shea, returning after a period on the sidelines, landed 0-08. Paudie Clifford, suspended yesterday, will be available again for the group stage, after his stellar series of performance late in the league. After another routine Munster final success to go with earlier winning the Division 1 title, @efitz6 feels @Kerry_Official are a much improved collective from last year #rtegaa #rtegaapodcast — RTÉ GAA (@RTEgaa) May 5, 2025 "The key difference between Kerry this year and this time last year is that an awful lot of the lads are playing well," Fitzmaurice said on the RTÉ GAA podcast. "They're playing seven, eight, nine out of 10. Whereas, at this stage last year, a lot of them were five or six out of 10. "They were just looking for a bit of form. They weren't quite playing with the confidence or the fluency they can play with. "They just look good at the moment. That's a positive for Kerry. For the next couple of weeks, they just have to try and beat whatever is in front of them. "There will be battles. Obviously, Roscommon in the first game up is all they're going to be focusing on. But that game above in Páirc Uí Chaoimh will have a real edge to it. "Cork will be coming, believing they should have won the first day out. Kerry will be forewarned of the qualities of Cork. "Hopefully, it will lead to the kind of battles that used to be there, 10 or so years ago and over the previous 10 years, where those games were really 50:50 and there was a real physical edge to them." O'Connor observed afterwards that he would be "hard taskmaster" to "quibble too much" with Kerry's display, though Fitzmaurice says there's always issues and imperfections to address. As in the 2023 Munster final, Clare finished in the odd situation of having registering more points than Kerry, while losing by a double-digit margin (it was 5-14 to 0-15 on that occasion). However, much of Clare's tally came late on, when the result was already long settled. "Clare won the second half. It had almost become a challenge match at that stage," Fitzmaurice said. "What'll be most happy with is Kerry would have been focused on getting a good start, coming out of the traps and making sure they weren't giving Clare belief and giving them the chance to get a foothold in the game. "They did that from the off. They won the throw-in, Seanie O'Shea kicked a two-pointer within 30 seconds and they went from there. Once the goals started going in, that was that. "When they're being fussy, and they're really starting to critique their own performance, they'll look at the 21 points (conceded). They were sloppy up front at times which seems very harsh considering they scored 4-20. "But some of the final passes, they were forcing them a bit. And they were turned over and against a better team that could have countered quicker it could have been costly."
