Inter-county players cleared to line out for Beaufort in Mid Kerry SFC

The news comes after a week of a certain amount of controversy in the wake of a request by members of the Kerry senior football squad not to play in district championships this year, citing burn-out as a factor.

Speaking at this month's County Board meeting last week, Chairperson Patrick O'Sullivan outlined both the Board's position on it and the players' viewpoint.

"Basically it is not County Board policy to prevent any player for turning out to play for his club," Mr O'Sullivan insisted.

"I spoke to Jack O'Connor [Kerry manager] about it and he assured me that he had not issued any instructions to Kerry players not to play for their clubs.

"I spoke to the Kerry captain [Paudie Clifford] and he told me that, yes they were hoping [the players] that they would not be asked to line out this year in the local championships.

"Because of the length of the season in Kerry, burnout fears that lead to injuries and the fact that the players felt they needed some down time before they return to collective training again with Kerry on December 7. This is also in line with 'zero contact' month sought by the player's body for November.

"The danger of burnout for the inter-county player and dual player was well flagged before any decision was taken on the introduction of the split-season. The split-season was supported by this county and this is one of the downsides of it."

It subsequently emerged this week, in an interview with The Kerryman by Beaufort manager Éanna O'Malley, that the Mid Kerry outfit looked set to be forced to line out without their inter-county players for this Sunday's derby clash with neighbours Milltown/Castlemaine.

"All we know at the moment officially is that the position is that county players won't be playing," O'Malley told The Kerryman on Wednesday afternoon.

"And we've been making submissions to the County Board for them to compromise on it and all we've been told on it is that the position hasn't changed.

"That's all I can say on it, and we even put a proposal in to try and demonstrate how fair we're about the whole thing to say we don't even expect them to train with us. Just let them play the games. I don't think you could possibly get fairer than that."

On Thursday it seems that the ground shifted, in the aftermath of O'Malley going public with his concerns and disquiet, and that the Beaufort trio have been given clearance to play this weekend.

It's unclear at this juncture if all Kerry panellists have been given leave to play in their district championships, or if this is a one-off concession. At the very least it shows that O'Malley's call for the issue "to be dealt with on an individual, case by case basis" has been heeded.