Outfought Kerry played on Dublin’s terms, says Eamonn Fitzmaurice

“Out-thought, outworked, and outfought,” conceded Éamonn Fitzmaurice.

The Kerry manager offered not a single excuse for the off-colour nature of his charges, accepting that his team had churned out their poorest display of the summer on the afternoon where it mattered most.

“We didn’t function,” he said, struggling somewhat to find the answers to why Kerry had failed to reach the heights scaled in previous Septembers — their 0-9 tally was the county’s lowest in an All-Ireland final since the 1965 defeat to Galway.