Éamonn Fitzmaurice shuns excuses after Kerry no-show
It’s always been Éamonn Fitzmaurice’s nature to be gracious and forthright in his post-match dealings, but what must cause concern now is that it’s become quite the habit for those qualities to be illustrated in defeat up in Croke Park.
For the fourth consecutive time, his team left headquarters without a win and yesterday in facing the media he was conscious that another defeat next week and his team won’t be back here at all this year.
“We didn’t turn up. Right from the off we looked to be a yard off the pace for whatever reason and the better team won. [Galway] won all the battles. David [Clifford’s] goal probably put some bit of respectability on the score.”
He wasn’t into offering excuses. When asked if his team were thrown by Galway’s ultra-defensive structure, he wasn’t having it. “Ah no, we’ve encountered it plenty of times [before] and practised against it enough. You’ve to give credit to Galway for their plan, they structured it very well, they got some great scores on the break.
“But you have to look at the way we played as well. We didn’t kill the ball, we were predictable upfront, we weren’t dynamic; we weren’t accurate the way we can be. I actually thought our workrate was very good, especially in the first half, we worked very hard to stay in the game, but our accuracy wasn’t there.”
Nor was he going to attribute Kerry’s underperformance to being untested and undercooked in the Munster championship.
“We knew it was going to be a huge jump from the Munster championship. We approached it very well and as we always do and played our two games but we weren’t getting carried away by the Munster Championship, the same way we’re not going to get carried away by this [defeat].”
Fitzmaurice refused to attribute their flat performance to the fact the team could afford to lose and remain in the championship. “If the safety net is going up to Clones fighting for your life, it’s a questionable safety net,” he said.
“We were very much [of the approach] that this is championship. You can’t be looking at it on a league basis and looking at scoring permutations and so on. The most straightforward route to an All-Ireland semi-final is to win your three games.”
Now that Kerry find themselves with that safety net, Fitzmaurice is glad to be availing of it. “If this was the old system and we brought that level of performance, we’d be out. We have another chance next weekend but we’ll have to improve 100%.”
If Fitzmaurice was looking for, or offering some, excuse for the nature of Kerry’s underperformance, it was the team’s inexperience. “I think the game will bring us on a good bit but within the group we’re well aware, and we’re often saying it, that we’re a work in progress.
“We’ve a lot of changes made. We’re trying to go in a direction but when you’re doing that, you’re sometimes going to get caught and we were today. We met a team that are a bit further down the road than us, that were a bit more streetwise and played better than us and deserved the win.”
Fitzmaurice sceptics could counter that Kerry might have addressed that imbalance in nous by bringing on an experienced, streetwise footballer like Kieran Donaghy, who remained rooted to the bench all day. When asked if the Austin Stacks man had been injured, Fitzmaurice reported that he wasn’t.
“A few of our substitutions were forced by the likes of Jason Foley getting injured, so that probably robbed us of that [Donaghy coming on] today. Sometimes you have loads of plans in your head but they don’t pan out that way.”
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