‘Devastated’ Kerry manager Mark Bourke unhappy with decisions in loss to Galway

"Like you would think, everyone is just devastated inside in the dressing-room," said Bourke.

We wondered if it would be a particularly brief sitting as by the third question the interviewer was already reaching for the, 'But it's been a good season overall, hasn't it?' safety question.

To his credit, Bourke set aside the torment of it all and gave a decent summary of where he felt things went wrong for Kerry.

Starting with the decision around the late goal that didn't stand, and the point that should have.

"I wasn't close enough really to make a determination," said Bourke of the square ball decision. "There's two umpires, there's a referee, there's a video ref up in the box to review all this information. Were they all used? I'm not sure. The call was made, that's it."

On the earlier Síofra O'Shea point, which was scored after referee Margaret Farrelly had signalled the end of a period of advantage following a foul on a Kerry player, Bourke was crystal clear about it.

Should the point have stood, necessitating a replay?

"Yeah, absolutely," he nodded. "It's pretty gut-wrenching now. A two-pointer or a goal, a point on the advantage rule and all of them not given. It's really tough. But look, as I say, we can't control any of it and fair dues to Galway as well. You must take your hat off to them, I thought they'd a great game. I thought we'd a great game.

"There were players playing really good football for both sides and then there were players that were trying to get into the game for both sides, but everyone just gave whatever they had for it.

"I'm not sure how it looked, it was really tight football, Championship football and then it really egged up there in the last 10 minutes of the game and it was great, so fair dues to Galway as well."

Just 26,471 turned up for the showpiece, almost 30,000 down on the record crowd of seven years ago when Galway also came out the wrong side of it, losing to Dublin in a 2-3 to 0-4 encounter.

Bourke didn't take kindly to the suggestion that Kerry may have lent to a particularly cautious and defensive spectacle.

"I don't think we made it defensive, I don't think we put a sweeper in place all day - I thought it was the other way around, I saw sweepers from Galway," said Bourke. "But I didn't think that was going to make a difference, even if they did put in a sweeper because they would be more attacking.

"It's just that the two teams are so equal. And there was some really big turnovers for both sides that made the scoreline maybe the way it was. But it was never going to be a 1-16 game here today, it was never going to 2-14 to 1-16 or something like that. So 12 scores to nine is how it finished up and that shows that it was a Championship game."

For the record, Bourke felt it has been a good season overall, one that has thrown up another Munster title success for Kerry despite how it all ended.

"Yeah, absolutely," he said. "Ourselves, Armagh, Dublin, Galway, we all did a really good All-Ireland series. Two fell in the semi-final. It was probably going to come down to a one-point final game in the end. Something had to give. It's amazing the way it was such a controversial ending, in my opinion anyway. But that's the way it goes."