​By John Harrington

It probably wasn’t long after last year’s All-Ireland Final defeat to Dublin that Eamonn Fitzmaurice began plotting how he would turn the tables when the teams next met in Championship football.

He would have known if all went to plan the chance to do so would come in the 2016 Semi-Final, so everything he and his players have done since then has been building towards Sunday’s showdown.

Of course they planned and strategized for other teams along the way, but Fitzmaurice admits they’ve always kept one eye on this date in their diaries.

“I think it’s always been on the horizon for us,” says the Kerry manager. “But you have to be very careful. And you have to treat all the other games with the utmost of care.

“And we were professional in the three games we’ve played previously. Obviously there was that carrot on the horizon for us, that if we could….our first aim, when we get to the Championship always is to win the Munster Championship, which we did.

“And we knew then at that stage if we kept winning, the likelihood is that Dublin were going to keep winning and we’d be playing them in an All-Ireland semi-final.

“It’s the game we wanted. It’s the game we’ve been waiting for since last September. We have it now.”

Since Fitzmaurice took charge of Kerry they’ve only ever lost two Championship matches, both of them to Dublin. This year’s League Final defeat was another sore reversal against their greatest rivals.

Fitzmaurice is a fine details man who takes a forensic approach to management, so it’s not surprise to hear the challenge of finally beating the Dubs in a match of real consequence is one that consumes him.

“It does,” he says. “I think, to be fair, when you lose an All-Ireland final, there’s process you go through.

“There’s a root and branch review to see what could have been done better in terms of preparations in the build up to the game, in terms of personnel, in terms of management performance in the lead into the game and on the day of the game.

“Then you park it. And I think we have evolved a good bit as a group. All of us, me included.

“Like I said already, we have the ultimate test now. And we’ll see if that evolution has gone far enough. But I’m happy with how we’ve evolved so far.

“And I think we’re better than we were this time last year. But whether that’s going to be good enough or not on Sunday week is another thing.”

It’s been well flagged up by now that Kerry’s path to today’s All-Ireland semi-final has been a gentle upward slope rather than a precipitous one. To get here, they’ve had to beat Tipperary once and Clare twice.

Perhaps stiffer tests that they received in those matches would have them better prepared for the challenge of facing Dublin. But Fitzmaurice admits one advantage is that Kerry have not had to show their full hand yet and have the wherewithal to spring a tactical surprise on Sunday.

“Can you afford….as in something tactically or fitness wise? You probably can, yeah. You can.”

Kerry will need to throw something new into the mix because they simply haven’t been good enough to beat Dublin heretofore. Fitzmaurice believes his team have evolved since last year’s All-Ireland defeat. But admits that so too have Dublin.

“Absolutely,” he said. “They’re always adding. They’re always improving. They don’t stand still.

“I think that their game and the way they play hasn’t changed that much year to year under Jim Gavin. But the subtle tweaks, with the likes of Cian O’Sullivan obviously is a well-documented one.

“They’re putting less and less ball up for grabs. They’re slicker up front. Brian Fenton was a huge addition to them in terms of a ball-winning midfielder. And all the other attributes he brings, both defensively and offensively.

“But they’re always adding little bit and improving. If you don’t, you’re going to be found out. You can’t do what they’ve done in the last – it’s nearly 18 months at this stage – to have gone unbeaten the League and Championship – is serious stuff. Especially after winning an All-Ireland.”

Dublin have lost two quality defenders in the shape of Jack McCaffrey and Rory O’Carroll since last year’s All-Ireland Final, but so far at least they seem in no real way diminished by their absence.

The caveat is that we’ve yet to really see a team put their new-look defence under pressure for any sustained period, and the hope in Kerry is that they can expose a chink or two by doing so.

“I think they are beatable,” says Fitzmaurice. “But as I said already, you have to be on the best of your game. This thing has been put out there that they are vulnerable in their full-back line, particularly in the air. But I haven’t seen too much evidence of it yet.

“I think Michael Murphy was well-handled the last day. He’s a handful inside there. I think in the Leinster final, Westmeath had John Heslin inside for a while and then when they had the injury to Connellan, they brought on the big fella and they handled him with ease.

“They handled Aidan O’Shea with ease last year. So I don’t know if that’s over-stated. You’ll have to wait and see whether we do it on Sunday week.”

Fitzmaurice thought his players were sufficiently hungry going into last year’s All-Ireland Final, but then found on the day that Dublin’s appetite was greater. Kerry’s defeat last year proved once again how difficult it is to win back-to-back All-Irelands, so will Dublin also discover when it comes to the crunch that their edge has been dulled by last year’s All-Ireland success?

“I think that they’re mad to do it because the success that they’ve had in this decade…that’ll be the ultimate achievement, to get a back-to-back All-Ireland,” says Fitzmaurice. “I just think that hunger is a factor. I think hunger caught us at the end last year. I think, on the day, Dublin were hungrier than us.

“We had been hungry to that point, but for some reason we met a team that were hungrier than us last September. It’s very hard to measure that or to quantify it or to make fellas hungry. But they were hungrier than us last September. You’d be hoping that we’d be hungrier this time around.

“I think the lads have been waiting for this game because when a team beats you, it hurts. When you lose an All-Ireland final. I think any sports person wants to get a cut off the team that beat you.”