To lay down a marker

putsch against the previous management team there’s a certain pressure on these players to live up to the high expectations they have for themselves and to reach the standards they have set.

“You’re never really satisfied when you lose,” O’Connor reflects.

“But the effort was really good and I think we pushed ourselves harder for longer than we did last week and that’s a good kind of benchmark at this time of year. In fairness we don’t know where Clare are at, what they’ve done today, this morning, yesterday, so it’s hard to take too much out of it, but you’d be satisfied by the effort of our fellas, definitely that was commendable.”

Was it a flawless performance from O’Connor’s charges? Of course not. Nor would he claim it. Nor would he want it necessarily at this time of the year. That Clare are a cut above where this Kerry team are at is precisely what makes them such valuable opposition.

Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor’s side were poised to exploit frailties in every facet of Kerry’s play. There were times when they threatened to run amok, breaking tackles and pushing through to create six separate goal chances.

Three of those were saved brilliantly by Martin Stackpoole, two were taken and a sixth was tapped over the bar from the penalty spot by second half sub Peter Duggan. Each of those another chance for Kerry to learn, to grow, to improve.

At the other end of the scale Kerry often times struggled to break the tackle themselves, moves breaking down and turning over on the half-forward line – the absence of ball-winner and line-breaker Michael O’Leary was keenly felt.

“Their [Clare’s] tackling is at a really high level, they’re very clever in the way they tackle,” O’Connor explains.

“It’s something that a lot of our lads haven’t experienced in a while or maybe haven’t. They tackled well. It’s a compliment to the way they’re being coached and training, because they’re very good in the tackle.

“It’s something our lads have to get used to and we did get turned over at times, but I think we used the ball well and got a couple of good scores out of it. I suppose Clare did very well, but we’ll try to close the gap and keep working on using the ball and get up to a good level.”

Outside of all that, what we’re left wondering is what style of play will the new man seek to impose on Kerry. One interesting thing to note is how Kerry went short more often than not with their puck-outs – nineteen of thirty one.

Is this merely a factor of the way the game is going? Or the way this game panned out or indicative of something more systemic the former Waterford coach is trying to inculcate in this group?

“It depends on how the opposition sets up,” he says matter of factly.

“If they give you an open puck-out target you’ll probably take it, it’s not something we’d have been doing too much of the last week or ten days. Clare took sixteen puck-outs in the first half and they were all short, they didn’t hit one long in the first half and they won sixteen out of sixteen of them so if you want the ball it seems to be the way to go.”

The Kerry team of 2017 is much more comfortable playing a possession game than might previously have been the case – an idea offered up by Donal Moloney straight after the game – so would it be that big of a surprise to see them embrace a running game even more than they already have?

Time, as ever, will tell. The most we can say now is that everything seems positive.