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Aiden McCabe wants Kerry to make Leinster Championship impact

Kerry goalkeeper Aiden McCabe.

Kerry goalkeeper Aiden McCabe.

Advancing from the Leinster SHC Round Robin series is Kerry's target and goalkeeper Aiden McCabe feels that Fintan O'Connor's team have the ability to claim a top two berth in the group.

“Do as well as possible, get out of the round-robin, that’s important," McCabe says about Kerry's aim for the year.

Despite suffering relegation from Allianz Hurling Leagues Division 1B, McCabe took some positives from how the Kingdom performed against some high quality opposition.

“If you take all those games, the first half, seem to do right well, but we seem to get caught at the start of the second half for some reason," McCabe states.

"We’ve said it numerous times, you know, talked about it and tried to work on it that we won’t get caught.

"Try to get a fast start, try to stop them from starting well but it never seems to materialise.

"But that’s the League, that’s over now, this is Championship, it’s different. It’s like playing Club Championship at home, the very minute you mention the word ‘championship’, there’s a different aura about it.

"We have the fitness, it’s about working on touch and a couple of errors we’ve made in the last couple of games, hopefully it will all fall into place."

McCabe is delighted to be working with Kerry goalkeeping coach Brendan Cummins, who has been a huge influence.

“He’s very good," McCabe admits. "I was there for a short bit three or four years ago, when he was with Eamon Kelly.

Brendan Cummins is acting as goalkeeping coach for Kerry.

Brendan Cummins is acting as goalkeeping coach for Kerry.

"When he first came in, you stand there looking at him. Seeing this fella on TV for numerous years and seeing him playing hurling, playing in goals, you look up to him. This year, he’s been very good. We usually do it before training.

"Myself and Stackie (Martin Stackpoole) could be out on the field for three quarters of an hour before training and then that training starts. "It’s very good, the drills and stuff he has is totally different to what we would have done before and all the drills that he does are ones you would call on in goals. Puckouts and shot-stopping and stuff like that – it’s very good to be fair."

Martin Stackpoole and McCabe are both eager to claim the Kerry number one shirt. “We’re very good friends, I lived in Lixnaw when I was a young fella, moved to Kilmoyley when I was about 10," McCabe says.

"I would have known Stackie from living in Lixnaw and playing against him. I’ve great respect for him, it’s not like there’s a bitterness or anything between us.

"Any time he’s playing, I’ll do the warm up with him or he does the warm up with me. We could go pucking then together, it just works in both ways.

“Being captain, you could let it go right to your head and think ‘ah sure, look, I’m going to play every game, I’m captain.’

"It doesn’t work that way. I played the first two games, Stackie played the next three or four games. I had a couple of words with Brendan.

"He’s often rang me and asked how I felt about it. We talked about it and to be fair, it’s the easiest thing to do and he knows what it feels like as well.

"We just talk about it, I could just go away and throw the head down and go into a sulk, but no, when you talk to Brendan, he says ‘put the head down now and keep working hard’ and hopefully get back in number one then and hold it."