Defeat not the end for veterans, says Ó Sé

TOMAS Ó SÉ is confident that Kerry’s All-Ireland defeat will not result in the retirement of players or management team.

Defeat at the weekend has inevitably led to speculation over the future of a number of the Kerry panel, five of whom Diarmuid Murphy, William Kirby, Seamus Moynihan, Liam Hassett and Dara Ó Cinnéide are aged 30 or over.

Though the perception is that this is an ageing Kerry team, their average age (25.1) is almost identical to that of Tyrone's (25.0) and slightly more favourable than Armagh's (25.3).

"Kerry have proven they can come back and win more," said Ó Sé yesterday. "The attitude among the players is good. I thought that a few of the players might walk away from it after a loss but that is easier said than done. Many of them feel that they have to prove another point and try and win it back. That is a great attitude that Kerry have. And I hope that Jack stays too. There are no talks about retirement."

For all the decisions facing this Kerry team, both collectively and individually, yesterday was still too soon to be addressing such weighty issues. Sunday's game will need to be dismantled and dissected before everybody can move on.

O Sé compared Kerry's performance to Mayo's in last year's final, claiming they were not near as bad a team as they may have looked. The analogy is apposite. Twelve months ago, Mayo also enjoyed a stirring opening to the game that proved to be more an illusion than an illustration of things to come.

"We started off very well," said Ó Sé. "One of the major turning points was Peter Canavan's goal. I thought it really lifted them and they knocked on a point straight afterwards, so we went from being a few points up to being a few points behind coming in to half-time.

"At half-time we still felt we had a good chance of it and we were confident enough but they stuck to their guns and they played very clever on the ball and never wasted any possession.

"Every time they went up they looked like scoring and anytime we came to within a point of them they seemed to be able to go back up and get another score.

"Overall, over the year, I don't think we had enough tests from opposing forward lines.

"That Tyrone forward line is as good as you are ever going to meet, ever. They are slick, they are clever and they have a great work ethic and they are a great team."