‘You would almost need a thesaurus to work out negative words to describe it’

Seán Cavanagh has described Tyrone’s capitulation in Killarney as a disgrace and an embarrassment.

The Red Hand skipper apologised to fans who made the long journey to Kerry anticipating an extension to their team’s unbeaten run, but could only watch in disbelief as the Red Hands were crushed by their fierce rivals.

“It was a disgrace for anyone standing out there in the second half as a Tyrone footballer,” he said. “We know we didn’t even decide to turn up, or decide to even try and play, I don’t know what happened.”

Cavanagh was bitterly disappointed at the lack of a response once Kerry turned up the tempo in the second half.

“They hit a purple patch, and across the pitch, every single one of us, none of us just decided to do anything about it. We all stood and watched them play football, and it was embarrassing.

“Not too many of us have had that happen to us through a half of football in our club or county career. I certainly haven’t had much of it, thankfully.

“We just have to get back out this week on the training field and put it right, simple as that.

“Mickey Harte’s not going to put it right, or Tony Donnelly, Fergal [McCann] or Gavin [Devlin]. It’s ourselves, and we just have to look deep down in ourselves, and no doubt we’ll be hurting for the next couple of days.

“We have to fight back, and I think Tyrone teams have been good at that in the past, and we have to do it again.

“I feel so sorry for all the good Tyrone supporters who went down there and had to sit and watch that and travel five or six hours.

“As players we have to accept responsibility and apologise for it. It’s not acceptable. You would almost need a thesaurus to work out negative words to describe it.”

Cavanagh was at a loss to explain the second-half collapse which saw his side relinquish the lead, before limping to a resounding 15-point defeat.

“We came out for the second half, we were unbelievably flat. They bossed us about the pitch, bullied us about the pitch, and we didn’t even put up a whimper of a fight, which is embarrassing.

“We were scratching our heads, trying to work out what went wrong, because we though we matched them in the first half, and we thought we could possibly kick on. But we completely lost our shape, lost our way, and made life very easy for them. In the first half, we were motoring well, but whatever happened in the first five or 10 minutes of the second half, we just decided to switch off, and couldn’t pull it back.”

But he takes heart from his memories of the manner in which Tyrone teams have in the past bounced back from heavy defeats.

“The only thing I can think of now is in 2005, we came out of a wet Portlaoise having been beaten by Wexford.

“At that stage we looked at ourselves and decided that we had to do something different, we had to change it.”

This weekend’s Division 1 clash with Westmeath has now taken on an added significance.

“It probably makes last week’s result [v Kildare] even more flukey now that we have done this, so there is an onus on us as players to stand up and fight back, and that starts with a massive game next Sunday, because all of a sudden we have gone from potentially being in the semi-finals tolooking potentially at the other end of the table.

“Next week’s game will have to be like a championship game.”

Cavanagh said the players must reflect on their failure to compete with a rampant Kerry side, and their inability to find a response when the Kingdom raised their game.

“We weren’t putting in challenges, we weren’t trying to win break balls. They were strolling through the centre of our defence. All over the pitch, they were first to every ball. In the past, we would have tried to start a physical battle to try and spice things up, but that’s the most disappointing thing, that we lay down and just let them waltz through us.”