Kerry midfielder Anthony Maher keenly aware of competition for places

"No, there'll be no experimentation," said Eamonn Fitzmaurice – not the words anyone in Waterford wanted to hear from the Kerry football manager. He's not joking about it either. Indeed even with not ideal six-day turnaround from Sunday's Munster quarter-final win over Tipperary, the mood in Kerry is unpromising: in many ways Waterford's trip into their old den in Killarney for Saturday's semi-final couldn't have come at a worse time.

Everything suggests Kerry intend picking up where they left off against Tipperary – and if that 17-point win (2-19 to 0-8) is anything to go by there’s more grim reading to come. The last meeting between these teams, in 2007 also ended in a 17-point win for Kerry, and the sad reality is Waterford have won only two games in the Munster championship since 1988. Fitzmaurice admitted Donegal, last year, “maybe bucked the trend, didn’t use a huge amount of players” but as far as he’s concerned “you need a very competitive panel . . . the more competition for places the better”.

Competition
On closer inspection, competition for places is at its premium. The new captain Eoin Brosnan is "practically there, very close to being involved" after a hamstring injury means he's likely to see some game time on Saturday evening, although midfielder David Moran is another two weeks away from match fitness following his recent eye injury.

Still, all five substitutes introduced last Sunday – Darran O'Sullivan, Bryan Sheehan, Kieran O'Leary, Mark Griffin and Brian McGuire – will fancy their chances of breaking into the starting 15, which is what midfielder Anthony Maher means when saying "fellas with the jerseys at the moment are fighting to keep them".

Maher can feel relatively safe about holding down one of the midfield positions: the Duagh player started there in all six championship games last summer, and was arguably the man-of-the-match last Sunday. Johnny Buckley, his partner, may feel the same, his free-taking abilities an added bonus when it comes to selection.

And yet Maher points to at least three players breathing down their necks – Sheehan, Moran and also James Walsh, from Knocknagoshel. Darran O'Sullivan is gunning for a starting berth in the forwards, and yet the question of why James O'Donoghue started ahead of him on Sunday was answered when O'Donoghue hit 1-3. Assuming Brosnan does return, who gets dropped from Tomás Ó Sé, Killian Young and the vastly improved Peter Crowley?

“We do seem to have a very strong panel at the moment,” says Maher, “and every guy who has a shirt, from one to 15, will be doing his utmost to keep it. That’s why Eamonn won’t have to say much to keep us motivated for Waterford.”

So, all talk of upper and lower divisions, or a two-tier championship, won't do much to break Waterford's fall. Manager Niall Carew has introduced a more defensive game, but it's impossible to see them holding out against Kerry, especially after their range of scores, and 11 scorers, last Sunday .

' Not to be predictable'
"All around the middle eight we have fellas who can kick from distance," he says. "It doesn't seem to be a difficulty, for any of us. It's another string to our bow, and something we want to bring this year is to not be predictable and that means different ways of getting scores."

Interesting too was the way Kerry mixed their passing – foot and hand – and their kick-outs – long and short: “It’s a new facet of the game. You see Dublin, who are very good at it, and Donegal last year were very good on the short kick-outs. It is the way the game is going. It is always about maintaining possession and if that means having to go short then so be it.

“When you come up against the stronger teams that space seems to go away, and it is harder to kick pass. But it is encouraging we are getting back to a good kicking game.”

Most crucial of all, says Maher, is getting the attitude right: Sunday’s win was as much about making up for 2012, when they struggled to get past Tipperary, and there will be more of the same on Saturday.

“Last year we were a bit out of kilter, leaving Thurles. A bit disappointed in ourselves. It set the tone for the championship, which was disappointing so it was in fellas’ minds to go out and start well. Like Eamonn says, we haven’t been training to train well, we have training for the championship.”