GAA: Whatever you say, say nothing was Páidí Ó Sé's attitude to the media. But for once he said something. Ian O'Riordan looks at the consequences.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Páidí Ó Sé's recent interview with a Sunday newspaper was not what he said, but that he said anything at all. In his years as Kerry senior football manager he has gradually adopted a vow of virtual silence.

When he does speak it is never in cases or specifics. Part of it comes from an innate belief that speaking to the media can only cause trouble, and also that Kerry football should always do its talking on the field. At times too he doesn't care enough about what the media think to give them anything decent to write about.

In the week before the All-Ireland final against Armagh last September he endured a painstakingly short interview with Tom Humphries of this newspaper, and midway through inquired if there was any way it could be printed after the game.

He would always comfortably distil any controversy - in most cases by simply ignoring it. In the last year alone he's had to deal with the withdrawal of his star player Maurice Fitzgerald from the Kerry panel and the red-card dispute surrounding his captain Darragh Ó Sé. Any comment from Ó Sé was as good as a no comment.

Quite simply then his remark that Kerry supporters were the "roughest type of f***ing animals you could ever deal with" can be put down to a careless slip. Whenever Ó Sé talks in the sort of comfortable home surroundings that the Kevin Kimmage interview was conducted he will always use flowery language, and as he said in the article himself he was caught on a good day.

"It's not an article that I would associate with the Páidí Ó Sé I know," says Seamus MacGearailt, who worked closely with the Kerry manager during their All-Ireland success of 1997, and also trained An Ghaeltacht to the county football title in 2001.

"I know that Páidí has nothing but the utmost respect for the Kerry supporters and I think he was caught offside on this one. We all know that Páidí sometimes uses very colourful phrases to make a point. And I think that the point he was trying to make in the article really was that Kerry supporters are very demanding, and rightly so."

For another former colleague and selector Seán Counihan, who was involved in another controversy during Ó Sé's term by being replaced as a selector in 1999, the remark has been somewhat exaggerated.

"I believe Páidí has a passion for Kerry football," says Counihan, "and by and large over the years he has been very gracious about the support for Kerry football. The only thing that disappoints me is that Páidí is usually very shy when dealing when GAA correspondents of the newspapers who struggle to get an interview with him, but he left himself wide open on this front."

It may be that Ó Sé is coming under unprecedented pressure as Kerry manager. He is in the second year of his latest two-year term, but that term is almost certain to end this year unless the All-Ireland title is secured. The last thing he'll want to do is end on a losing note.

Last year was also the most difficult of his term as manager. The death of his brother Michael in the middle of the championship was an obvious setback, and the defeat to Armagh in the final continues to haunt him. He appears now to have recognised a soft streak in the Kerry football team, saying that their heads simply weren't right last September, and at times it was going to be impossible to keep those feelings to himself.

What this controversy is likely to ensure, however, is that Ó Sé will renew his vow of silence with a vengeance. If ever there was ever a need for his footballers do to the talking for him on the playing field it's now.