The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
What they said
Eamonn Fitzmaurice, Kerry manager
Delighted to have won, delighted to be heading for Croke Park as Munster champions. Won a game well but at the same time we’ve plenty to work on, so happy believe it or not!
I don’t think we closed the game out great. After Fionn’s [Fitzgerald] injury that stoppage, the edge seemed to go out of the game and we made a share of mistakes. When the final ten minutes of injury time went up we didn’t react great to that and that’s defintitely something we can work on. And then there’s other aspects you’re always going to be looking to improve on, our own kick-out, going after Cork’s kick-out, but overall you’d have to be happy.
There was a lot of good football today. We probably missed goal chances as well, that’s another thing we can look to improve on, but overall there was a lot of very good scores, good, measured football and I think you’d have to compliment the lads, all of them who took the field today, on how well they played.
They’re [Cork] going to ask you questions. They asked us questions today, it’s something we can improve on, but it’s no surprise to me that Cork ran hard through the middle.
Peadar Healy, Cork manager
We’re disappointed of course with the performance. It’s a tough dressing room down there at the moment, you’d know well that we’re hur ting. That’s understandable. I thought, there’s no excuses, Kerry well deserved their win. They star ted well in the first half, star ted well in the second half. Look if we take the positives out, again we created goal chances, didn’t take them. If you don’t take goal chances against Kerry you’re in trouble. The forced-substitutions with [Niall] Coakley, Ruairí [Deane], [Michael] Shieldsy and [James] Loughrey there in the second half cost us a bit as well.
At half-time I still felt we were in with a shout, we just needed to keep going at Kerry, keep going at Kerry and we felt we got a chance or two in the first half to score a goal and at the beginning of the second half again, but we didn’t and after the break Kerry got very much in control at midfield, particularly on the kick-outs, our kick-outs and they seemed to target that well and they got scores from it and once they scored a goal – ball burst then.
They’re [Kerry] a good side lads I’m telling you they’re going to take a lot of beating in the All Ireland series that’s for sure. The bench are good, they’re strong, their first wide must have come ten/fifteen minutes into the second half. Very clinical.