Eamonn Fitzmaurice has poured cold water on the prospect of ever managing Kerry again.
It’s coming up to a decade since Fitzmaurice was first appointed to the role at the age of just 35 and by then he had already served two years as a senior selector under Jack O’Connor.
The 2014 All-Ireland success was an against-the-head managerial triumph for Fitzmaurice given that Kerry’s title credentials were largely unheralded that year and though they failed to follow up on that breakthrough as Dublin dominated, the Lixnaw man was earmarked for a return to the job some day after stepping down in 2018.
O’Connor himself has taken on the job three times and has made a mockery of the dictum that ‘you should never go back’ by delivering All-Ireland glory on four separate occasions, including last month’s triumph over Galway.
But it’s not a path that Fitzmaurice, still only in his mid-40s though now principal of Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne in Dingle, sees himself treading.
“You never say never but at the moment it would be a definite no because a thing that Jack has, and I think he’s mentioned it himself, is the fact that he’s retired from teaching,” he told The Sideline View Podcast with Darragh O’Connor.
“He has the time to put absolutely everything into it and I think if you’re doing it, that’s the way it has to be.
“You have to be able to put your whole time into it to do it to the level it needs to be done now. In the short-term it’s not something I could see happening.
“I feel that between playing and being involved as a selector and being involved as a manager, in management alone I was involved for nine years between, I was six years the manager and I was two years a selector with Jack, I was in charge of the under-21s so I feel almost like I’ve done my bit and I really enjoyed it and there’s loads of other lads within the county that are chomping at the bit to get a cut at it as well so I’ll be happy out to support them from the sidelines rather than putting myself in the firing line again.”
Fitzmaurice was even more categoric about the prospect of managing another county, saying that he couldn’t stomach sending a team into battle against Kerry.
His name has been mentioned in connection with various managerial and coaching roles around the country of late and, indeed, he was linked with a coaching role under fellow Sunday Game pundit and newly-appointed Meath manager Colm O’Rourke recently.
O’Rourke didn’t rule out the prospect of Fitzmaurice’s involvement in his management team when quizzed about it on local radio last week but the former Kerry boss’s comments on the possibility of his getting involved with another county suggest that that particular union will not be coming to pass.
He said: “I couldn’t ever see myself managing another county to be honest. I couldn’t manage against Kerry, I’d find it very strange.
“I think when you’re involved in your own club or your own county, there’s something in you inside in your soul that kind of drives you to another level that maybe if you were involved with a different group you wouldn’t quite have.”
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