Peter Keane – Thank you
As the Kerry S
enior Football Manager appointment and formal ratification process has concluded we can now formally thank and acknowledge Peter Keane and his outgoing Management team for their collective contribution to Gaelic football in Kerry.
Peter and his family have a long association with Kerry football. His playing career began with the St. Marys club in Caherciveen and he went onto represent Kerry at Minor and U-21 level as a player. At Club level he managed his native St. Mary’s to All Ireland Junior Championship glory in 2011 and went onto manage Killarney Legion to a County Championship Final appearance in 2015.
Along with his family, he is deeply engrained in the best traditions of Gaelic football in Kerry and runs a very successful supermarket business in Killorglin actively supporting many underage competitions in Kerry.
In 2016 he was appointed Kerry Minor Football Manager. Kerry had already won successive All Ireland minor titles in 2014 & 2015 and Peter and his management team went onto win both Munster and All Ireland Minor titles in the three following successive years culminating in a historic five in a row All Ireland titles in 2018.
His managerial expertise, acumen and success at both Club and Inter-county level was duly recognised and he was appointed Kerry Senior football Manager in October 2018. Peter had worked with many of the players at minor level and would have been very familiar with them.
In his first year as Kerry Senior Manager, he succeeded in reaching the 2019 All-Ireland football final and following an enthralling drawn game with Dublin, Kerry lost out in the replay. It was a remarkable achievement in his first year as senior manager to reach the final with such a young and
inexperienced team and we must rightly acknowledge and compliment this.
Following a disappointing loss against Cork in the Munster Championship in 2020 played in monsoon like conditions the team emerged as a re-energised and extremely focused Unit in 2021 playing some swashbuckling football under Peter’s tutelage with Kerry ultimately sharing the Allianz League title and winning the Munster Championship in exceptional style in a sun-drenched Fitzgerald Stadium in July of this year.
The team were very well prepared and positioned for an All-Ireland Semi Final Appearance against Tyrone on 15th August 2021, but a Covid-19 outbreak in the Tyrone camp meant the game was put back for one week initially and then for a second week.
The unpredictable environment of Covid-19 and its effects again came back to impede Kerry’s preparations and unfortunately, we lost to the eventual All-Ireland Winners Tyrone in a very tight encounter at Croke Park.
Peter – your contribution, expertise, and commitment in developing and advancing the growth of our players & their ambition for improvement going forward is fully acknowledged and will benefit the overall association in Kerry for many years to come.
We wish to thank and salute you for the incredible service you have given to Kerry, the many personal sacrifices you have made along the way and the amazing determination and resilience you have shown over the past 2 years in particular in what was a very challenging Covid-19 environment.
We also wish to thank and acknowledge your fellow selectors – Maurice Fitzgerald, James Foley, and Tommy Griffin respectively who collectively and individually have made such an important and meaningful contribution to Kerry football.
Finally, we wish yourself, Siobhán and your family all the very best in the future.
Míle Buíochas as ucht gach rud,
Kerry GAA
