TOMAS QUINN:Kingdom show value of foreign training camps

There are some games where a manager might feel the need to try to motivate his team beforehand, but I doubt Eamonn Fitzmaurice had to give much of a pep talk before throw-in at Healy Park in Omagh yesterday.

Kerry have known for the last two weeks they required a victory to have any chance of avoiding relegation and also required some other results to go their way. As it turned out they got both and will remain in Division One again next year. Of more immediate importance though is the amount of positives they will take from yesterday.

Players and teams can motivate themselves in many different ways. One of the strongest motivational tools is when a team creates a siege mentality with a ‘nobody believes in us’ attitude that they are going to do everything within their power to prove “everybody” — whoever they are — wrong. Yesterday’s display had all the hallmarks of a team that felt they had something to prove. Leaders such as Tomás O Sé, Kieran Donaghy and Declan O’Sullivan set the tone from a very early stage, ensuring Kerry dictated the pace of the game and the style in which it was played.