Stephen O'Brien believes Kerry need to ease the burden on star man David Clifford as they seek to regain Sam Maguire.
Saturday's Munster SFC semi-final against Cork is the Kingdom's first championship appearance since losing last year's All-Ireland decider to Dublin when the five-time All-Star forward from Fossa was held to just two points from play, a low return by his standards.
"You can give him any type of ball and he’ll win it. He has a great chance of scoring every time he gets the ball.
"But we maybe have a tendency to sometimes just put the ball in and expect him to put it over from the sideline.
"He’s well capable of doing that but we want to get more repeatable, team-work scores and if we can get that down we have the class with David, [other Clifford brother] Paudie and Seanie [O'Shea] to get those screamers the defence can’t do anything about as well."
Kenmare man O'Brien is heading into his 11th season in the Green and Gold but he is diplomatic as to whether the 25-year-old is the best he has soldiered with.
"I’m lucky enough to have played with some class players. When I started out playing, 'Gooch' [Colm Cooper] was in his pomp and was class to watch as well. James O’Donoghue, for those couple of years he was playing, was unreal as well.
"We’re very lucky in Kerry to have a couple of candidates for that title."
Derry's defeat of Dublin in the Allianz Football League Division 1 final suggests the champions and their predecessors might have some intense competition later in the summer.
But O'Brien is wary of reading too much into that or Kerry's third-place finish ahead of their Munster opener at Fitzgerald Stadium.
"It's wide-open this year," he said. "But we’re so far away from when the knockout stages kick in, teams that are in unreal form could have dropped off or vice-versa.
"We just have to keep training well, try and stay fit and hopefully we’ll be there or thereabouts when the business end comes around.
"Overall, [we were] probably a bit inconsistent really [in the league]. There probably is that element of shadow boxing, maybe some teams are keeping things back.
"The day against Dublin in Croke Park was very disappointing, that dampened spirits at the time and maybe tainted the whole league, but we responded well enough to that, winning the last couple of games.
"We were looking forward to making the league final but it wasn't to be and now we’re looking forward to championship.
"Cork are traditionally Kerry’s biggest rivals so you always wanted to test yourself against them. That’s a huge game for us now."
Ultimately, nothing less a 39th title would mark a successful season for the honour-roll leaders.
"[Winning] the All-Ireland would be the standard in Kerry," said the 33-year-old. "But the All-Ireland won't be won in the next couple of weeks. You have to try to get to the Munster final first and take it from there.
"There is a renewed focus coming off what was a disappointing end to a good year last year.
"It's not like we were a million miles away. It was a very close game. It’s not a case of going back to the drawing board completely, we just have to execute those moments a bit better."
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