by Daragh Small

Limerick manager John Kiely believes criticism and abuse comes with the territory of inter-county management but it almost prevented him from the taking the hotseat in his native county.

Kerry football manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice stepped down at the weekend, and said he was a 'lightning rod' for negativity and criticism for his team.

But as he reported a clean bill of health for Limerick less than two weeks out from their massive All-Ireland SHC final meeting with Galway on 19 August, Kiely said that the management team have to learn to deal with such issues. 

"You get it (abusive letters). You do, even when you win, would you believe?" said Kiely.

"I find that strange, that even when you win you get a letter of criticism. It's a free world, and I know you're up for criticism. That's the bottom line.

"People want the team to win and to do well, and other people have their ideas about how it could be done or should be done, the tactical approach, whatever it may be.

"But they come, and I have a box at home. I keep it in the box, it stays in the box. My wife picks it up and vets it and doesn't let anything too serious come my way.

"It was a consideration before I took up the job. My girls were young, and I decided to take it on and that was one of the factors, that the girls were so young. They wouldn't be exposed to that stuff because they're young. 

"I've no regrets on that score. There are so many different outlets - some of them are legitimate, they're fair, but more of them are sub-judice and anonymous.

"If someone here wants to do something that isn't positive, that's fine. It's someone's opinion and they're putting their name to it. That's fine, 100 percent. And maybe they're right, too. 

"There are times we get it wrong, and maybe they're right. But the anonymous stuff is just nasty. Eamonn is right. It has no place in the game, it's unfortunate, but it's just there."

Kiely was a victim of abuse shortly after he took charge of the Limerick seniors in February 2017. At that stage he told a certain facet of the Limerick supporters to stay away from county games.

But the Garryspillane man said that incident which occurred after a 21-point defeat to Cork in the Munster Senior League was blown out of proportion.

"There was too much made out of that. There were a couple of boys who'd been out the night before and hadn't been home, they should have gone home, we shipped a heavy defeat to Cork," said Kiely.

"It was just those couple of guys, the way they were behaving, I didn't feel they should be there. Things have moved on, it was just a small incident.

"That doesn't really bother me at all, to be honest. My own forgiveness would be the slowest to come if I got something wrong, or if there were something I could have done. I'd be the slowest to forgive myself.

"You only get one chance at each of these games, and I'd be my own worst critic at the end of the day."

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