Fade-out worries manager

Poor. Disappointing. Bad. Malfunction.

Not the sort of words you expect a winning manager to be reaching for in the wake of a six-point All-Ireland quarter-final win, but Eamonn Fitzmaurice refused to gloss over the issues of concern which arose yesterday.

There weren’t many angry words afterwards. The Kerry dressing room was a quiet place, said the manager, and the three-and-a-half hour coach home was much the same. That’s a lot of silent contemplation.