Fitzmaurice says Kingdom in a better place despite defeat

It was another Kerry defeat but by a different name although it was the same measured Eamonn Fitzmaurice that greeted the press yesterday as he did after the Mayo and Dublin defeats.

But here there were positives to glean as much as he acknowledged the 16 wides was a considerably inaccurate total.

“A lot of them were scores that we could have got. Even if we had got a quarter of them, we’d have got over the line. We’d be disappointed with that, but definitely from our point of view we’d be pleased with the second-half display.

“In particular when Kildare got the second goal, we went six points down and it was kind of déjà vu. Were the lads going to go into their shell, were they just going to accept it?

“But they didn’t, and they showed good stuff and they came back, and we were probably slightly unlucky in the end.

“We’d a couple of goal chances that, on another day, would have gone in. I think that the Kildare second goal came from a line ball decision that the lads were saying they didn’t touch. That might have gone our way.

“You got those breaks — sometimes we didn’t get them today — but definitely the attitude and work-rate was a big step-up from where it was a couple of weeks ago in Killarney.”

The graft of Donnchadh Walsh was notable and Fitzmaurice was delighted with a player who hadn’t initially been expected to return to competitive action so quickly from hip/groin injuries.

“Donnchadh’s remarkable. He’s only got a couple of weeks training under the belt, but whatever but whatever physiology he has, he can go straight into a game of that intensity and pace, and to put in the shift that he did, we were delighted.

“We didn’t plan to leave him on as long as we did, but as the game was going on he still had a bit to offer us and we felt he was playing too well, so we just left him there.”

Kerry’s progress yesterday isn’t reflected in the league table where they prop up the table with Cork having beaten Down. It’s now about survival for Kerry as much as Fitzmaurice maintains the three unbeaten teams will come back to the rest.

“Six points would probably keep you up, but we’re on zero, Down are on zero, Mayo [and Cork] are on two, Donegal are on two so there are teams down there who are going to be scrapping it out.

“You have three teams on full points, Dublin, Tyrone and Kildare, who are going away from the pack. I do think all the teams are going to take points off each other.

“We do have to start getting points or else it is going to be a foregone conclusion that we’re going down. We don’t want to go that direction.”