Former Kerry player Pat Spillane has said Kerry are five years behind Donegal and won’t win the All-Ireland title.
Spillane has been a vocal critic of Donegal over the years, and just a fortnight ago accused Rory Gallagher’s side of being the masters of the dark arts in the GAA.
However, Spillane said Kerry are currently five years behind Donegal, but was speaking in relation to the defensive systems adopted by both counties.
Writing in his weekly column in The Sunday World, Spillane lamented Kerry for adopting the much maligned ‘defensive blanket’ now implemented by the vast majority of inter-county teams.
However, he said their defensive set-up was a shambles in their MFC win over Tipperary, and that they are five years behind Donegal in developing a good defensive system – and ten years behind Tyrone.
He believes Kerry won’t win the All-Ireland title because they lack pace in the middle third required to match Dublin, and that quite simply defensively they’re not good enough.
Spillane wrote, “Fitzmaurice has decided that deploying a blanket defence strategy is the key to sorting out Kerry’s defence and launching a successful bid to secure the All-Ireland title.
“I take issue with the strategy because Kerry are three years behind Dublin, five years behind Donegal and more than a decade behind Tyrone in terms of developing an effective blanket defensive system.
“They don’t have the pace Dublin have, and they’re not able to counter-attack like Donegal do – at times during their facile win over Tipperary their defensive system was a shambles.”
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