Eamonn Fitzmaurice handed boost with news on Kerry senior stars for 2016

Kerry football fans could be forgiven for being gloomy about their hopes for 2016.

James O'Donoghue and Colm Cooper are both facing a spell on the sidelines due to shoulder injuries, which will rule them out of action for the early part of the new year. Those injury blows come as almost half of the starting team that lined out in last year's All-Ireland final loss to Dublin are recovering from various other problems. Eamonn Fitzmaurice must plan for the early aprt of the season without Kieran O’Leary, Paul and Mikey Geaney, Shane Enright, Anthony Maher, Johnny Buckley and Peter Crowley  due to variety of ailments. However, there appears to be at least some good news for followers of the Kingdom as Radio Kerry are reporting that it is expected that the county's veterans such as Marc O Sé, Kieran Donaghy and Aidan O'Mahony will all play on into 2016. The local radio station are reporting that both O'Mahony and O'Se are back in individual training programs, while Donaghy is likely to fall back in with Kerry after Saturday's Kerry senior championship relegation play off between Austin Stacks and Laune Rangers this Saturday. O Sé is currently 35, while O'Mahony is just two months older than the An Gaeltacht legend. Donaghy is slightly younger but will  celebrate his 33rd birthday in March. There is no news on Paul Galvin as of yet but it is likely that the Finuge man will not feature for the green and gold in 2016.