‘They are very encouraged they lived with Kerry’

YOU could say that he’s mellowing in his old age, that his vast experience as a player and manager over four decades of Cork/Kerry rivalry prepared him for occasions like this.

Yesterday in Pairc Uí Chaoimh, Billy Morgan took his team's defeat on the chin, naturally disappointed that they lacked the finishing power to achieved victory, but proud that they had pushed the All-Ireland champions all the way. It was, he agreed, so different to 12 months ago.

"That was devastating. I could not really understand the collapse," he recalled of his team's failure in the semi-final in Fitzgerald Stadium.