Kerry manager Jack O'Connor admitted he'd have preffered a "more testing game" after his side's 20-point victory over Tipperary in Fitzgerald Stadium this afternoon.
As expected, the All-Ireland champions sauntered into the Munster final after an extremely easy win over an out-of-sorts Tipp side, who recently fell into Division 4.
The home team won at their ease, despite David Clifford's off-colour performance, with Tony Brosnan and Seanie O'Shea carrying much of the scoring load, the former shining with five points from play after a first half penalty miss.
"Comprehensive enough win by our fellas, we kicked 25 points," O'Connor remarked to RTÉ Radio 1's Saturday Sport afterwards.
"Maybe a bit disappointed we didn't hit the net a couple of times but that's okay. We obviously had a chance in the first half and missed it from the penalty.
"I suppose we would have preferred a more testing game or whatever. But at the end of the day, we were trying to reach our own targets and we achieved that.
"I was happy enough with the way the forwards gelled. Tony Brosnan had a good day, kicked five points from play, that's great shooting. Tom O'Sullivan came up from corner back and kicked three. Look, happy enough but well aware there's bigger tests ahead.
"Any day you kick 25 points is a good day."
"I suppose we would have preferred a more testing game or whatever. But at the end of the day, we were trying to reach our own targets and we achieved that.
O'Connor surprised some by picking 12 of the side that won the 2022 All-Ireland final, though the Kerry boss insisted that his experimentation period is done for the year and that it'll be largely full-strength teams from now.
"The experimenting is over. That's what the league and McGrath Cup are for. We'll try and put out what we think is our strongest team from here on in. It's good that we used 20 fellas and they got a nice bit of game-time.
"We're trying to keep as many fellas as possible match-fit. Because with the round-robin, we think it'll be fairly intense and we'll need a big panel."
Tipperary boss David Power sought to remain upbeat after the game, stressing that the two teams are on different tracks.
Power, who guided Tipp to an emotional Munster title triumph in 2020, has seen his playing ranks badly depleted since then, though he is confident they'll be able to mount a tilt at the Tailteann Cup.
"We're on two different journeys," Power told RTÉ Sport. "Kerry are going to be there or thereabouts for the Sam Maguire. We're looking towards getting ready for the Tailteann Cup in three weeks time.
"Getting beaten by 19-20 points is hard to take. But there was a lot of good parts of our play that we'd be very, very happy with.
"We didn't give up goal chances. There's a lot of positives. We're getting fellas back. We're obviously after losing a number of players. I think people are still looking towards us as if we had the same team as two or three years ago. I wish we had. We'd be looking towards the Sam (in that case).
"But we are where we are. I think we can have a really good battle for the Tailteann Cup. Because we have the likes of Steven O'Brien, (Jack) Kennedy coming back, all big men that can win ball. We were missing them for the league.
"We wanted to beat Waterford in the first round and come down here and be competitive. And I think we were. Kerry only made the changes with 15 minutes to go. We would be disappointed with the last 12 minutes, they got a couple of soft scores we'd be disappointed with.
"But we have to look towards the Tailteann Cup. We'd be disappointed with what we did last year. But now there's a different attitude.
"We want to have a decent rattle at it. And if we keep all our lads fit, we can be competitive."
