'I wouldn't say it's an opportunity missed': Keane says Kerry's youngsters will learn from All-Ireland experience

Peter Keane isn't the first manager to make the claim that external noise emits nothing more than a faint and indistinguishable buzzing noise in the ears of his players.

But the Kerry boss will pray that this rings true now.

It's impossible to conclude anything other than the fact that the Kingdom let opportunity slip through their fingers in this afternoon's All-Ireland final. Rarely can so many what ifs have piled up on one side of the ledger after a stalemate.

What if they hadn't kicked all those wides? What if they had taken more than one of those golden goal chances? What if they hadn't turned so much ball over in that last eleven minutes after Killian Spillane took the lead? None of which is to forget that they played more than half this game against 14 men.

“While ye might read a lot into yourselves, we wouldn't read a lot into ye're thinking,” said the Kingdom manager. “I'm talking about in general, the point being that we wouldn't put a whole pile of emphasis on that. We're just thinking about ourselves.

“Did we think we had a chance coming here today? Sure of course. If you have two dogs in any race, one of the dogs might get a heart attack and the other one could walk home. You have a chance every time you are out there.”

Kerry have 14 days to wash any regrets from their hair and recalibrate for another shot at the five-in-a-row chasing Dubs and Keane is adamant that his young team is in no way wallowing in their inability to complete the job after reeling the Leinster champions in in a thrilling second-half.

“I wouldn't say it is an opportunity missed. At the end of the day we weren't in an All-Ireland final since 2015. You have a young team. What are they going to get only experience out of the game?

“There is a learning curve. I said all along that we were on a crash course of a learning curve and this is only helping it.”

Quirke's Final Podcast: Kerry learn on the job. Gavin's gaffe. 'O'Shea is a joke'. Gough's big calls