Click here to listen to the interview with Kerry senior footballer Paul Geaney, who was speaking at the launch of the 2026 Munster Championships.

By Cian O’Connell

Paul Geaney is back in training and ready for action.

Following Daingean Uí Chúis remarkable AIB All-Ireland Club triumph, Geaney was afforded a break to rest injuries that had tested resolve in the winter.

The accomplished Kerry and Daingean Uí Chúis forward somehow found a way to survive and thrive for the club. “The mind is great, the body is good, well rested, and probably feeling I’ve the lungs and the legs now first the time in the last 10 days,” Geaney says.

“It was tough in the winter with the injury, and obviously wanting to be available for the biggest games in our clubs history and the opportunity at hand. It’s tough when you don’t know what you can produce on the day, if you can even run.

“It was tough that way, but on the flip side of it after the toughest year on that side of it in my career, it was rewarding and pleasing to know I can get through it, and still be useful for something after those bad injuries.”

A glow of satisfaction has followed Daingean Uí Chúis triumph. “It was insane,” Geaney responds. “For west Kerry, for Dingle, our neighbours An Ghaeltacht, and Ballymacelligott, in the football stakes, nothing really beats club as regards community, tribe, all that sort of thing.

“The whole county, in fairness, got behind the three clubs and got behind us. I’m in a public facing business in the bar, everybody wants to talk football. You do have to embrace it, but it is always part of the day to day life, anyway.

“It’s not a cliché, something that is thrown out there that football means more in Kerry, it genuinely decides the emotion of a county on a Monday after a game.

“If you lose on a Sunday, you can feel it around the county. So, it does mean more to people than most other sports do in Kerry. There is a weight of expectation with it. So, you’ve to embrace it, in every which way.”

Speaking at the launch of the 2026 Munster Championships, Geaney acknowledged that it has been an encouraging Allianz Football League campaign for Kerry.

Sunday’s Croke Park decider against Donegal is next on the agenda. “It has been very positive,” Geaney says.

“In a lot of ways we worked on things throughout the league that have clearly improved which is always the aim.

“We got some good results, some great performances, another couple of guys got a number of games under their belt.”

That bodes well for the future. “Armin Heinrich played most of the league at wing back, which is great, so we’ve more cover there and more competition for that spot,” Geaney adds.

“You’d a number of guys out for the league that would’ve, at the best of times, have a great stake for their jersey, the likes of Tom O’Sullivan and Brian Ó Beaglaíoch, Diarmuid O’Connor is to come back in, Gavin White is to come back, myself, Paudie Clifford has been missing for a stint of the league.

“When these guys are missing, it means other guys are getting game time and getting exposure to travel and away time with the squad, too.

“The likes of Keith Evans and Cillian Trant had very good campaigns in the league and it is great to have that talent and depth. Tomas Kennedy, too.

“So, the more competition you have because it is important for a team to not go stale and not rest on their laurels. Hopefully we can go out on Sunday and acquit ourselves well and that’ll be the end to a good league campaign, then.