Victorious Peter Keane would ‘consider’ accepting Kerry senior post

Peter Keane was his usual coy self. He knew the question would be thrown at him and when he was finished addressing it, we were none the wiser as to will he or won’t he be the next Kerry senior football manager.

First off, he reckons the selection committee charged with finding Éamonn Fitzmaurice’s successor have already settled on who they want to lead the Kerry seniors in 2019.

If that’s to be Peter Keane, the man himself is in the dark to such given his insistence that said group have not been in contact with him.

What the three-time All- Ireland minor-winning manager did tell us was that if approached he will consider filling the post of senior manager.

“Of course you would consider it if approached,” Keane remarked.

But until such time as a board official picks up the phone and inquires as to his interest in the job, he’ll not give it any thought.

Like, this is a huge commitment. This is something you’d stop and think about and say, ‘Jeez, will I do this? Who would I bring with me?’ or whatever.

“But all of that is rubbish and I made up my mind that that’s what it was going to be until such a time as you’re asked. And if you’re not asked, that’s fine, you didn’t waste your time thinking about something.

“I was at that Kildare Super 8 game myself. I went home and two hours later, my name is on Paddy Power. But look, I know no more than ye know. Ye might say, ‘Ah, he’s only copping out here’ but I don’t.

“I made a conscious decision to say that I have a minor to win and the plan was to get over the All-Ireland semi-final and, hopefully, get over a final and if that became a question, deal with it then.

“At the end of the day, you have to be asked. There isn’t an application form to do this. The guys who’ve been chosen to pick this, the county board, the executive or whoever is there, they would have obviously sat down. I’ve no doubt they probably have in their mind already made up who is probably getting this. And I don’t know, I’m only speculating.”

He did accept that it would be logical for him to move up the ranks, having served his time at minor level.

“Again, had I started steering my head into that sphere two, three, four, five weeks ago, we wouldn’t have won an All-Ireland here today because my head would have been somewhere else.”

Galway manager Donal Ó Fátharta, meanwhile, knew his side should have been far more than four in front at half-time.

There was Eoghan Tinney’s palmed effort which Kerry ‘keeper Marc Kelliher did superbly to keep out. Cathal Sweeney also had a goal opportunity repelled.

“Every game we have played this year, our stats guys are telling us, ‘scoring chances created; loads’. The message all week was that if we were going to take these guys, we had to take our chances. We didn’t take them in the first half.

“We had a spell and then Kerry came back and got a couple of points to stay within touching distance. Even at the start of the second half, we held them out well. Kerry had a few wides and were a little bit panicky. That was the time, too, to push on, but we couldn’t manage it.”

Ó Fátharta, though, had no real qualms with the final result. Kerry, he felt, were the better team.

“Every team is beatable, but they had a little more quality than us, definitely, all over the pitch. Some of our guys played beyond where they were at the start of the year. Look, we are disappointed. When you are beaten by a better team, it is easier to take.”

He continued: “Our full-back line put in some shift because that Kerry full-forward line is… and then Ruaidhrí Ó Beaglaoích coming in. These guys are super footballers. Very proud of our lads.

“Yes, we missed chances, but Kerry were putting pressure on. You don’t get anything easy.”

What did slightly irk the losing manager was the performance of referee Seán Hurson in the second period, specifically the number of times he penalised Galway defenders for what he deemed illegal tackling. “I was a little bit frustrated by that. We have put so much work on tackling. There were some tackles where I felt the referee got Kerry out of jail a little bit. He just gave them that momentum. Now, I don’t think it was the winning or losing of anything.”

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