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JOE recently caught up with Colm "Gooch" Cooper to talk about plans for retirement, a disappointing summer, the All-Ireland semi-finals, Joe Brolly and his love of US sports.
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 Eoin Brosnan has his sights set on national league glory following his first run out of the year with Kerry on Sunday.
Brosnan revealed he sought a speedy return to the county fold following Dr Crokes’ exit from the All-Ireland club championship.
And he hinted that skipper Colm Cooper, who has taken a break from football, could be also be set for his 2012 county debut in the near future.
Brosnan said: "Different fellas have different appetites, different fellas are carrying knocks and stuff. But I felt I was raring to go. The appetite is there. The evenings are getting longer and I’m delighted to get back in. I feel fresh, the legs still seem to be there and it’s my second season with Kerry in a defensive position, and it’s still new. With the club we had a successful enough year but we came up short at the big hurdle, so you want to get back on the bike quickly after you fall off. There are only so many honours that you can win, the national league is one of them, it’s certainly a goal of mine to help Kerry achieve that goal."
While Brosnan was largely untroubled in his reintroduction to the county scene in Sunday’s comprehensive 2-16 to 1-8 rout of Donegal in Killarney, he feels that Kerry fans will soon see captain Cooper back in the green and gold.
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By Diarmuid O’Flynn
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 07, 2012
 Even the Gooch is human. 10 years after his senior debut for Kerry, 12 years after helping his club Dr Crokes to the Kerry senior title, Colm Cooper, the footballing genius from Killarney, is feeling the pressure.
It’s not physical, despite some terrible treatment over the years from one frustrated corner-back after another. It’s more a mental fatigue which set in in the wake of a heartbreaking All-Ireland club semi-final loss to the competition powerhouses, Crossmaglen Rangers.
In Dublin yesterday to receive his AIB Provincial Player Award for his heroics during his club’s win in Munster last year, Cooper explained why he has stepped back from competitive action for a spell.
"We just felt that a few weeks off might do me good and give me a small bit of a break. We’re on the road with the club and county nearly two years with no significant break. Physically I feel fine but mentally it’s good to get away from it a little bit. I didn’t want a situation where I went back and hit a wall in May or June, when you want your form to be good coming into the championship.
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Harry O’Neill will speak with Dr Crokes chairman Vincent Casey before deciding whether to continue as manager.
However, O’Neill stated last November that he had promised his wife he wouldn’t be in charge for the 2012 Kerry championship.
O’Neill, a member of Eamon Fitzmaurice’s Kerry U21 management team, made no excuses after Saturday’s defeat, saying the Killarney outfit didn’t do enough to win the game in the second-half.
Speaking about next season, he said: "It’s going to be difficult for these guys to get out of Kerry, that’s the big ask for them. But they have the experience from Munster.
"It’s a hard defeat to take but these guys have been to the school of hard knocks. However, they’ve shown that they can bounce back."
Admitting Crossmaglen’s third goal scored by Aaron Kernan after Chris Brady had drawn Crokes level had knocked the stuffing out of them, O’Neill said: "We hadn’t really played in the second-half and yet we were still in it, we got back to level terms.
"They had 14 and we had 15 and we should have been the team that was driving on at that stage.
"I don’t think there was any stage in the second-half where we got a period of sustained pressure and momentum going."
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The power of a jersey -- even the greatest can be affected by it. The sight of Colm Cooper failing to control a punted pass from Kieran O'Leary along the end line in the dying embers of this contest perhaps encapsulated the day he had and the extraordinary hold Crossmaglen Rangers have over every other club football team in the country.
The ball was wet, the conditions challenging, but you'd still have expected the game's best exponent to engineer something from the moment with Dr Crokes chasing a three-point deficit. He didn't get a second chance.
Once again the life had been squeezed out of opponents by a team who just have that inner belief that they are the best around and have the capacity to deal with any situation. The jersey and the tradition around it built up over the last 15 years, allows them that luxury.
Stephen and Aaron Kernan both scored second half goals from positions where they might have been wiser to have picked off points. If they had Armagh shirts on their backs, they would most likely have taken the safer option. But not with Cross, not with the weight of so much recent success empowering them. In the end those goals made the difference.
They made no special plans for Cooper either. There was no double marking, no massed defence, they just allowed James Morgan to track him diligently. Yet they restricted him to just one point from play and, in truth, he had very little influence. He was on the margins throughout, with Crokes always struggling to get him on the ball in the right positions. How many counties would crave such an outcome?
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