Kerry no-show still a ‘mystery’

CIAN O’NEILL is still scratching his head as to why Kerry underperformed so much in last month’s All-Ireland final, but reckons it simply has to be chalked down to one of ‘the mysteries of sport’. The former Kerry coach went to Brussels for work two days after the defeat to Dublin and didn’t watch the match back for a couple of weeks. However, when he finally got the chance, he felt that his team weren’t as far away from the title as the consensus had it. ‘Watching it back, I felt that we were closer than I had thought in real time. When I looked at some of our turnovers, unforced errors that directly led to Dublin scores, all these things could have been eliminated. ‘There is no way of putting your finger on what went wrong, I think it was just a catalogue of different things that went against us on the day. It wasn’t the weather. How could it be? We had beaten Cork in the rain, beaten Tyrone and it wasn’t an issue. ‘It wasn’t over-training, we had tapered as we did for every other match. The mood in the camp was great the day before, it’s just one of those mysteries. But it was devastating. When you perform and are beaten by a better team, that is easier to accept than when you don’t perform.’ O’Neill believes veterans such as Marc Ó Sé and Paul Galvin still have something to offer next season. ‘I think they all have something to offer. If Marc wasn’t injured, chances are he would be starting. Kieran [Donaghy] came on and did well, Paul came on, Aidan [O’Mahony] was playing. They are a phenomenal group to do what they’ve done for so long.’

MARK GALLAGHER