‘We were delighted. We put a lot into it’

That was an encouraging way for the season to end, coming back from ten points down?

We were delighted. In fairness we put a lot into it all week, because we were keen to get a win to finish the season. It was nice to get over the line, but I suppose when the lads got the bad start and went ten points down you were kind of worried that they wouldn’t be able to push on and get back into the game, but they pushed on and we got right back into it.

That was a strong Kerry side you named, we probably would have expected you to experiment a little?

I think in fairness to the competition there’s an awful lot to play for – for Antim and for Carlow and Westmeath and for Laois even. Our result was part of that and I’ve been saying how good a competition I think it’s been and how good it is to play in it and I felt that it was important that we went up and we didn’t put out a weakened team. Not that [it’d be weak], we’ve a lot of fellas who would have been able to come in and not really weaken the team, but we just felt that we owed it to them to put out as strong a team as possible.

You’re against changing the format of the McDonagh Cup for next year? Dropping the number of teams to five?

I don’t agree with not allowing the Christy Ring winners to come straight up, because I think it’s very unfair on a team that wins something not to be promoted and to have to be in a relegation play-off. I think that the bottom team this year who are Meath should swap with the Christy Ring winners and that should be the same every year after that then. I wouldn’t have any problem playing five championship games. I think that would be brilliant to play five championship games every summer and teams like ourselves and Antrim and Meath and Offaly next year I suppose, the more championship games we get the better for us. I’d be 100% hoping that. I wouldn’t see any problem with six or seven teams at that level, let alone five.

Six teams avoids a lot of the complications we see in the senior championships?

There’s a break of a week and everyone gets the break the same week and everyone is playing the same week and there’s nobody saying ‘they got a better run’ or ‘they got a better luck of the draw’. Six teams makes perfect sense. Five teams are going to be unfortunate, one team is going to have to play four weeks in-a-row, some people are going to have break in the middle. I think six teams makes sense for everyone.

It’s been a really good campaign, but is there a little regret you didn’t sneak into the final at Carlow’s expense?

We weren’t far off them, but in fairness we played Carlow twice and we played Westmeath twice and they were the only games we lost all year. It’s disappointing that we’re not in the final and probably the day in Carlow when we were two points up with maybe two minutes to go and a little bit similar against

Westmeath, it’ll come back to haunt you thinking about what we could have done to close out the game. That’s probably a learning curve that we have to get a little bit of pain before we get success and maybe this year will help us.

To have blooded so many new players and to stay as competitive as you have must be encouraging?

I’m delighted with the amount of young hurlers that we have involved with us at the minute and it’s a great good sign of Kerry going forward. I don’t know what the average age of the team is, but it’s a bit like an Under 21 team at times. When you look around they’re like lads I’d have in school, they’re very young, but look it’s nice to see that kind of freshness and enthusiasm around the place and still mixed in with a couple of more experienced heads that we’ll be sorry to lose. Tom Murnane this year, Saturday was his last game and he was captain of the team and I think that was some of the motivation on Saturday as well.

Tom’s been a real leader for Kerry over the years hasn’t he?

He’s a leader and his attitude was brilliant for the lads involved to have two years with Tom, because