IT was a gray, rain soaked day, not that Kieran Donaghy cared. He was back playing for Kerry. It may have been Longford, it may well have been a first round qualifier, but it was championship, he had Colm Cooper alongside him and the Kingdom were purring.

It wasn't to last. Around ten minutes into the second half he fell awkwardly. Injured... Again. He'd just missed the Munster campaign as a result of a foot injury, now it seemed likely that he'd miss the rest of the championship. 2009 wasn't going to be Donaghy's year.

He did manage to make a second half appearance in the All Ireland final last September, but it wasn't until the league kicked-off a couple of weeks ago that he began to feel like his old self.

He wasn't 100% straight out of the box, but gradually game by game he was beginning to look more and more like his own self – a relief no doubt, to not only himself, but to the Kerry management team and to the Kingdom faithful.

Last Sunday saw Donaghy back to his very best. Winning high ball, tapping it down to either Colm Cooper or Declan O'Sullivan and showing a deftness between the sticks. Man of the Match stuff. His battle with Kevin McCloy was well worth paying added attention to. It was hussle and bustle, tit for tat. Donaghy got the betterof it. McCloy got a yellow card.

"There was once or twice he had one of my hands," Donaghy recalls. "But the backs are going to do everything they can these days and I suppose it's up to umpires or whoever to spot that kind of thing.

"It's asking too much of referees to catch that kind of thing, they're up the field, but in fairness to Gearóid he caught one there towards the end, but it'd be more the umpires you'd be looking to to catch those kinds of things. Look Kevin is a good player, he was an All Star two years ago and we always have a good battle. I'm just happy to come out on the right side of it today."

Sunday was all about one thing the Austin Stacks man says – winning. Lose and the Kingdom were in trouble. Having won they can look to the rest of the season with added confidence. Not that losing the opening two games has been all bad.

"I think last year we failed to find anything out about ourselves during the league. We drew above to Dublin in Parnell Park, won every other game, but didn't really learn anything about ourselves until we went down to Pairc Uí Chaoimh and Cork send us home packing. I think it's good this year that we've found out a few things early on in the first two games that we can work and learn as a unit," he says.

Contrary to general consensus Donaghy feels that Kerry won this game in the first half. "We were playing into the gale and we got six points from play, no frees at all. Derry failed to score from play into the breeze. I think actually that our first half performance was the winbar that just gave us the impetus at half-time to go on and win the game. It was crucial," he says.

The last couple of months have seen Donaghy lose at least six teammates to retirement or the AFL. He realises this is part and parcel of the game – "that's the way it is," he says. Still he's confident for the future, confident in the abilities of guys like David O'Callaghan, Mike Quirke, Anthony Maher and Brendan Kealy to step up the mark.

"They're fellas there who are going to get more experienced as the games go on and that's only good for us," he concludes.

Park, Tralee ning of that game.

"I thought Brendan Kealy's save was a huge save in regards to the game. They had eleven wides, but probably six of them were passes that just went out over the endline, the stats might say eleven wides, but I'd say they only had five or six shooting wides, the rest were passes. I think it was Kealy's save just before half time when he touched it onto the cross-

- Damian Stack