Kavanagh: Kerry’s experience showed

IT WAS billed as a final with little to offer the neutral, but the long-suffering players and supporters of Mayo will surely have allowed themselves a wry smile as Cork saw their All-Ireland ambitions ended so cruelly and clinically at their neighbours’ hands.

The Connacht county suffered its fair share of opprobrium for the manner in which they lost their two deciders to Kerry in the space of the previous three seasons but their capitulations may now have to be revisited and reassessed.

So too will this Kerry team who, until yesterday, had failed to convince everyone — Liam Hayes in particular — of their claims to parity with the county’s more revered outfits.