Paddy Tally's 'healthy respect' set aside as Derry welcome Kerry to Celtic Park

Paddy Tally says his enduring sentiment following three years in Jack O'Connor's Kerry set-up is a healthy respect as 'The Kingdom' arrive in Celtic Park on Sunday with both counties chasing a first league victory over the season (12.30pm).

Tally had spent the past three seasons as a crucial part of the Munster champions' backroom team and tasted All Ireland success in 2022. Indeed, the Tyrone native had initially agreed to remain with Kerry for the 2025 season before Derry approached him to succeed Mickey Harte.

And, as the football gods tend to ensure, Tally now follows a Derry debut against his native county by facing his former friends in his first home game in charge.

"It may be," admitted Tally when quizzed whether his tie in Kerry provides him with an advantage this weekend, "Obviously I have worked with a lot of the players for three years so most I will know but at the same time I'm sure Jack (O'Connor) will be exploring other options too and bringing new lads in.

"He has a new coaching team, Cian O'Neill is the new Head Coach and there are other lads in around him who are new to the team, so they will bring new ideas that I wouldn't be ofay with because I haven't worked with those boys.

"But in terms the players I know, I've a very healthy respect for those lads because I know how good they are. Whichever of those players play on Sunday I will very much know the quality they possess. Maybe that's a slight advantage but, again, that all changes within the new rules because everything is slightly different at the minute."

Sunday will be Kerry's first competitive outing under Gaelic football's new rules with Tally describing Derry's first taste against Tyrone as an "eye opener" but stressed his player were already better for the experience.

"It was a lot of what you expected but until you see that in a competitive environment, and see the implications for a competitive game, it is hard to know how they play out," explained the Derry manager.

"You are looking at it through challenge games and through training but once you are in competitive environment where each of the plays is a vital play, or every score is a score that means something to the game, that puts a better focus on it.

"So certainly the game last week against Tyrone was an eye opener to the challenges we are facing and will face with the new rules. But it was good for the players because now they know what they are up against and how they are going to have to adapt the way they play.

"We are going to have to look at how we play within our systems etc because it has all changed but, no, I'm so glad to have that first game over because we can move on from here.

"We have had a good week's training done. Last week's game was so valuable to us all. It was the first time we had the opportunity to put a bit of context on where we are and we've learned a good bit from the game, so we are looking forward to getting a good run at Kerry on Sunday."

This year's National League has taken on an experimental feel with the implementation of the new playing rules which will be reviewed following this week's round of fixtures, but Tally says it's important not to allow the current learning curve to distract from winning games.

"We want to get two points on the board this weekend," he added, "This is a home game so let's make that very clear. We really want to go after it but it is also another step in the learning process. It's only our second match and there are a lot of things happening.

"On a personal level I'm still getting to know the players. We've had only one competitive match to see the boys playing in a that type of environment so there's plenty of learning for me as well; to see how our players are individually and technically and then how they are when you put them into a new system.

"We're still learning an awful lot about the players and they are learning about the new rules, new system and also learning about us (as a management team) so every game we play at the moment has got massive learning for everyone.

"And that's the beauty of last weekend. We came out of that game with way more knowledge than we had from the first six weeks of our training.

"We got real context from the Tyrone game. We saw things we really have to work at and this game will be the same. We will be using this to learn, to adapt and try to change things we need to from last week. We have to make changes as we go along based on what we've learned from last week but at the same time we have to make sure we are very competitive and have a chance of winning the game."