Kerry set for early team holiday to hit ground running for 2026 season

All-Ireland senior football champions Kerry are set to fly out on their team holiday in late October.

Kerry are currently planning for an earlier-than-usual trip to the United States and The Caribbean, which is expected to take in Nashville in Tennessee and Puerto Rico. They aim to return prior to the All Stars awards ceremony in Dublin on November 7.

Hurling victors Tipperary are travelling to Cape Town in South Africa as a reward for their success. They are scheduled to go in mid-November, a similar timeframe to last year’s winners Armagh and Clare’s breaks in the US.

As Jack O’Connor is expected to receive a two-year extension as Kerry manager on Tuesday night, the board executive are keen for the holiday to take place as early as possible to avoid upsetting preparations for 2026.

Collective inter-county training will recommence in late November or early December depending on whether the pre-season competitions return. There are strong indications the provincial councils will move to have the suspension on them lifted for 2026 meaning a training start date of around November 29 will be permitted.

In 2022, Kerry travelled to Dubai and Mauritius in December following their All-Ireland success and visited New York in November 2023 after they finished runners-up.

Speaking in January 2023, O’Connor said Kerry were “behind the curve” because of their team holiday “at the end of the year” in ’22.

Reviewing that season which concluded with defeat to Dublin in an All-Ireland final, he felt the trip had a negative impact. “I am slow talking about that (particular) match, but I do think for a lot of last year, we were chasing our tail,” he said in January 2024.

“We were late back after the team holiday, we started the year badly and while we made up a good bit of ground in the middle of the year, I don’t think we were anywhere near where we were the year before.”

In October 2023, Kerry chairman Patrick O’Sullivan said the county were looking at earlier holidays. “From now on, team holidays are likely to happen at this time of year because of the lessons that Kerry learned this year under the new championship format.

“We felt that we were very much undercooked when we travelled to Donegal for the league opener and we lost, which put pressure on us to stay up in Division 1.”

Kerry’s club championships conclude next month prior to the new county championship format commencing on the weekend of September 21 when divisional teams face off.

The winners of East Kerry-St Kieran’s, Mid Kerry-St Brendan’s and South Kerry-West Kerry will qualify for the first round proper (Round 3 knock-out) where they will join the nine club teams. The Round 1 losers will join the newly-formed North Kerry in Round 2 where the remaining two places will be filled. Twelve outfits will compete in Round 3 with the other two receiving quarter-final byes. The final is likely to take place on Sunday, October 26.

Courtesy of their All-Ireland final appearance, Kerry’s senior, intermediate and junior football representatives earned a semi-final bye in their respective Munster championships and won’t compete in it until the weekend of November 23.

As of last year, All-Ireland senior finalists each receive €150,000 towards their team holidays. The sizeable 88% increase from the €80,000 grant up to 2023 was agreed by the GAA’s management committee after Armagh and Clare petitioned for additional financial support due to the short two-week turnaround from the semi-finals to raise funds.

Provincial councils now make contributions to shore up the larger pot. The donations are contingent on teams engaging with the media.

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