KERRY FOOTBALL: Tom Humphriesfinds the Kerry manager in remarkably sanguine form as he ponders a new year without many of the star performers from last year's All-Ireland success.

WHATEVER species of rough animal the typical Kerry football supporter is, Jack O’Connor will surely be granted a season’s grace this summer.

As a team which has stayed at the top of the modern game, loses one third of its components and counts the cost of wear and tear on the others, it will be a miracle of management if O’Connor manages to keep the green and gold competitive this summer, let alone at the very top.

It’s quarter to 10 on a weekday morning and O’Connor is heading to Coláiste na Sceilge, where he will spend the day, as he likes to joke, pushing back the boundaries of ignorance.

It is a noble calling, but in Kerry they must wish he could push back the frontiers of time.

Time has claimed Darragh Ó Sé and Diarmuid Murphy and looks more than likely to do the same to Mike McCarthy. Australia has taken Tommy Walsh and Tadhg Kennelly. That’s as big a chunk of talent and influence as any All-Ireland winning team has ever lost between seasons.

So Jack. Is this transition or restructuring?

He laughs. “Listen. There is no such thing as transition or rebuilding in Kerry. Every year you have to go out and you have try and win the whole thing. Most people’s expectations will be damped down right now as it looks like we will be down a third of the team from the All-Ireland final. Come the summer they won’t be so damped down.”

The biggest blow is the one which is still lingering, the hammer about to fall. Like most of the county, O’Connor is pessimistic about persuading Mike McCarthy into another season of work. Having returned to be such a crucial influence last year, Kerry need him just as much now.

“It is pretty doubtful about Mike, unfortunately. Himself and his wife they have a young child and I think Mike is turning his attention in that direction. You never say never, but at the moment it is highly unlikely. That’s leaving a few big gaps to plug there now.”

Gaps are perhaps what are left when handy corner backs retire. Central players right the length of the field leave a chasm or a canyon when they depart. For a man whose stress levels were once legendarily high, Jack O’Connor is fairly nonplussed. Truth is, this is the sort of challenge he likes.

“We feel we can be very competitive again. You don’t replace a Tadhg Kennelly and Darragh O Sé and Mike Mac and Tommy Walsh and Diarmuid Murphy overnight; they were all great players in their own right, but you have to look at it calmly.”

He feels that, for one, there are players like Kieran Donaghy who, due to injury, wasn’t a factor last year, but who is ready to resume where he left off as one of the de facto leaders of the team.

The evidence of the league thus far suggests he is as good as ever.

Kerry lost a second goalie, Ger Reidy, during the week, the Castleisland man turning his attention more fully to his study. It was a loss, but Kerry have been happy with the form of Brendan Kealy from Kilcummin in goal.

“Our new man in goal is doing well, a good keeper. So I would be optimistic there. And there are a few fellas on the panel from last year; Aidan O’Mahony is coming back into a bit of form. It’s a big year for Bryan Sheehan being captain. We felt last year we had a very strong panel. Now it is time to give those fellas their head and see who comes out.”

So Donnacha Walsh will be allowed develop further. David O’Callaghan, a diminutive forward from Blennerville, impressed last week. Anthony Maher is back after nine months solid missed through injury. In last year’s league he looked like the player most likely to succeed. If he can find that form again Kerry will have serious options.

There are the two Barry Johns (Keane and Walsh) from Kerins O’Rahilly’s and even more promising, the one that didn’t get away, David Moran, who came in with three points last week against Derry.

The list goes on, sloping, as it were, from a deep end of realistic contenders to a shallow end of long-term prospects – but the personnel are there.

Whether Jack O’Connor can make them ready for this year is the question that remains to be answered.

“There is a good bit of fun in it trying to rejig the team.” he says, “and realistically, we aren’t under any massive pressure this year. The team have achieved an awful lot and as far as I am concerned we are in bonus territory and can go away and work without being under pressure.

“We looked at lads in the McGrath Cup and a couple of league games, the two Barry Johns, Paudge O’Connor from Legion, James O’Donoghue, a son of Dermot O’Donoghue, is very promising.

“We have a history over the last three years of bringing in fellas just gone out of minor to give them a look at it. They might not be realistic starters this year, but they would be ready in two years’ time. Lads like Killian Young would be in that category. Fellas like the Gooch don’t come along too often, out of minor and into the team – that doesn’t happen.

“You are looking for somebody who has to be 20 years old for senior football. It is just getting used to the physicality. The Dubs came down early in the league and we had a couple of young lads playing that day and it was an education for them. They could see this was at a different level altogether.”

This will be a spring and a summer played at a different level for Kerry. Sure, the appetite will grow as the evenings lengthen, but it is a season for the more learned students of Kerry football too, a time for trying and shaping, experimenting and analysing.

They do that better than anybody else does too.

“Optimistic, Jack?” you say, surprised at the absence of his native pessimism.

“Yerra, we’ll see,” he says with a grin.

They’re not gone and they’re not to be forgotten.