Rooney rues missed chance as time ran out

NA Gaeil manager Donal Rooney was understandably and acutely disappointed in seeing his players come so close to that elusive county title and said it was “scant consolation” to his that his team had just played a huge part in one of the best championship games likely to be played in Kerry all year at any grade.

“I’m proud of the effort the lads put in,” he said. “It was an up and down sort of game, we had a great start, then they went ahead, we went back ahead, and that went on to extra-time where we had a super start to extra-time, but then they got a few goals that put them ahead...I’m sure it was a good one to watch as a spectator but not great from the sideline,” Rooney said, who had a small issue with how the game ended when Na Gaeil were on the attack looking for an equalising point.

“I certainly would have hoped we would have got an extra minute or an extra couple of second or a chance there at the end there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of added time played, yeah, I’d be disappointed with that.

“At the same time the lads all put in a great effort - and so did Beaufort. It was an open game, good football being played, lots of errors made as is always going to happen in a final.

On the summer and the County League Rooney said: “We have a strong panel there but we’ll be missing a couple of Kerry players, we’ll be missing three or four lads during the summer, so we’ll be at a bit of a disadvantage that way but we’d hope to have a good crack off the league anyway.