As Kerry football captain for a second term, Gavin White felt some obligation to sit down and watch Donegal face Meath in the second All-Ireland semi-final last Sunday week. With Kerry’s passage already safe from the evening before there was no time to lose.
“To be honest, I was kind of in and out of sleep watching it,” says White. “But I got a good gist of it, and a good idea what Donegal are all about.”
White is quick to add this was no reflection whatsoever on the quality of Donegal’s football, as they ran out winners 3-26 to 0-15: “I was at home on the couch, absolutely shattered from the game the night before. We got home very late, but obviously during the week then we zoned in on them.”
At age 28, White is in his 10th season with Kerry, called up in 2016 having played the previous two seasons with the minors. He previously held the captaincy in 2019, when Kerry lost the All-Ireland final to Dublin after a replay, and was nominated again this year after Dr Crokes won back the county title.
RM Block
An All-Star defender in 2022, the year he won his first All-Ireland, White is looking to become the first captain from Dr Crokes to win an All-Ireland since Fionn Fitzgerald in 2014, when Kerry beat Donegal in the final.
Whether or not that’s a good omen remains to be seen, but White has only high praise for Dr Crokes in the way the club has influenced his career. After losing this year’s All-Ireland club semi-final to Errigal Ciarán, six players have been on the Kerry panel, including Mark O’Shea and newcomer Evan Looney.
“I’m incredibly indebted to that club,” White says. “Just the structure of the club, the people that are involved, the academy there on Saturday mornings.
“I don’t remember much of football from my childhood, but bits and pieces come back to you. I remember on a Saturday morning, Pat O’Shea was up there teaching me the block-down. I’d say I was under-10s, maybe 11s or 12s. If we went down to the main pitch now I could tell you exactly where it was.
“We’re very lucky to have some incredible coaches up there. In my own career with Crokes, obviously Pat [O’Shea] has put in a serious shift. It’s a credit to the culture of the club and it’s continually building, which is great to see.”
White took a break after losing the club semi-final but was keen to get back to Kerry as soon as possible: “As far as I remember, I took two weeks off. Myself and Tara [his partner] went away to Paris for a trip. I tried to switch off as much as I could but the league was happening in the background so I was kind of still obviously intrigued with the new rules as well.
“If you look at your career, you want to get as much playing time in the Kerry jersey as you can, so that probably drove me on as well to try to get back earlier.”
On the “topical issue” of the split season he says: “There are pros and cons to it. From my point of view, I think it’s good that the All-Ireland championship is wrapped up by the beginning of August, and there’s a bit of a break then before we go back in with the club.”
White is currently on his summer break from St Brendan’s College in Killarney, where he teaches maths and PE. His team-mate David Clifford is also teaching there. Both players have taken on a coaching role in the college too.
“It’s a different angle that you’re looking at, and different age groups obviously. It’s very enjoyable. It’s definitely something I’d like to do more of in the future whenever I hang my boots up.”
Kerry’s All-Ireland run so far will be remembered for two games in particular: the collapse against Meath in the round-robin series, and the blistering and blissful 15 minutes of football against Armagh in the All-Ireland quarter-final.
“That Meath game was a complete malfunction. I remember describing it as if we totally forgot how to play football. It was completely unlike us. Obviously we were bitterly disappointed inside that dressingroom. But it was a dressingroom that stuck together, which is a credit to all the lads.
“We knew the potential that we had, and it was frustrating that our form wasn’t showing that. Any defeat in a Kerry jersey is always going to be difficult, but we knew that we’re an awful lot better than that.”
Kerry certainly showed that against Armagh, although White insists he’d no clue about how dominant they were, scoring 14 points without reply.
“I wasn’t aware of it, to tell you the truth. You were kind of playing what was in front of you, you were looking at the next ball, and all of a sudden you realised we were six or seven points ahead.
“In the middle of it, I didn’t really even realise that we were so much in control. You were just always looking at the next ball, the next play and trying not to get, I suppose, too caught up in the scoreline.
“You probably see now with the new rules, if you’re five or six points up in a football game nowadays, it isn’t much compared to last year. But it was unusual ... absolutely incredible. I didn’t realise that during the game at all.”
