Fired-up Donegal pull plug on Kingdom

It’s official now — August 5, 2012 will be remembered as the day the music died for this once great Kerry team.

Martin Carney may have been premature in his assessment that their song was cut short on June 10 when Cork frogmarched them to the Munster SFC exit but yesterday an authoritative Donegal pulled the plug on Kerry’s record player and while their tune isn’t as sweet it proved the loudest.

With their bench having been emptied in the 56th minute, a desperate Kerry came close to doing almost exactly what Dublin did to them last September and overturn a deficit in the last 10 minutes, they ultimately came up short. Deservedly too.