Relieved Fitzmaurice puts Dublin’s Mannion on his Christmas card list

Eamonn Fitzmaurice could afford to offer up a wry smile in Healy Park yesterday when it had been confirmed Kerry’s win was worth something.

It was never going to be enough though and their third victory in a row was immediately met with a bittersweet reaction by officials and management as news came through that Mayo had beaten Cork and Donegal were leading Dublin by a point.

Paul Mannion, though, turned out to be Kerry’s saviour with his equalising point for Dublin in Ballybofey and Fitzmaurice was delighted to have some good fortune.

“We will have to send him a Christmas card or buy him a pint somewhere along the line,” he said of the Kilmacud Crokes player. “We knew we needed to get a result somewhere else and we just about hung on here. We haven’t had too much luck throughout this league so it was nice to get a rub of the green.”

Fitzmaurice admitted relegation would have been a great disappointment.

“Had we been beaten it would have been very disappointing because four points from our games would not have been a good total.

“If we had won today and still have gone down it would still have been disappointing but it would have been a bit easier to take because we would still have had a bit of momentum. The fact we hung in there is great.”

Fitzmaurice felt the performance will provide them with momentum going into next month’s Munster championship.

He agreed the toils of the training camp combined with the wind factor may have worked against them in the second half following a dazzling opening 35 or so minutes.

“We played very well in the first half but we played very well in the first half against Down as well. We knew Tyrone were going to come at us in the second half and we spoke at half-time about not giving them an early goal in particular so it was a bit disappointing that they got a goal early in the second half.

“The turnovers from us did gave them serious momentum at the end. The games here in Omagh, for whatever reason, between us seem to have taken that pattern where we go into the lead and they peg us back.”

Fitzmaurice hadn’t expected there to be fireworks between the great rivals and, as it transpired, there were no overly-heated incidents of note.

“Maybe it took a sinister turn there in the recent past with the situation in the couple of club games. But in Finuge we had the incidents with Cookstown and when we won the junior All-Ireland it was Stewartstown, we beat a Tyrone team, there was no problem and it was just a game of football.

“These things happen from time to time, I think a lot was made out of it whereas today I think it just showed it was two good footballing teams playing against each other.”

Mickey Harte echoed Fitzmaurice’s remarks.

“There are some incidents that have happened between some players in the past and that happens between various counties all over the place and I think there was too much made of that. There’s far too much decency in both the Tyrone and the Kerry supporters.”