Galway boss Pádraic Joyce warned that his side have work to do if they're to be talked about as genuine All-Ireland SFC contenders in the summer.
The Tribesmen ended their Allianz Football League Division 1 campaign with a two-point defeat to Kerry in Killarney on Sunday.
In truth the 0-15 to 1-10 scoreline flattered Galway, who notched 1-02 late on to put a gloss on it.
The big plus for Joyce's charges was that they avoided the drop. They start their Connacht SFC against London in Ruislip on 6 April, and will be aiming to go up a few gears.
"We're happy enough leaving Killarney, we're in Division 1, but obviously we have a lot of work to do to be talked about later in the year," said Joyce.
"We just seemed to play with a little bit of fear and restriction in our game which is hard to put your finger on. We need to address that because that needs to change going forward.
"That's not Galway's style of play; it's moving the ball fast and forward, that's what we're doing in training and then in the matches we don't seem to do it. We've to put our finger on that and figure out why that's happening because it won't be good enough going forward."
Reflecting on a contest in Kerry that was played in difficult weather conditions, Joyce added: "We started the game really well, stuck to our game plan and did what we were doing. We kind of fell away in the mid-section, probably the last few minutes of the first half and into the second half.
"It's hard to put your finger on what happened but the lads battled hard and showed a bit of character. They never gave up, they stuck at it, stuck at it even though they weren't playing overly well.
"We survived Division 1, that was the aim at the start of the year with the trouble we had with injuries and all that kind of stuff."
Kingdom manager Jack O'Connor was reasonably content with how his men fared.
They missed out on the Division 1 final, finishing third behind Dublin and Derry, with O'Connor reflecting: "We were happy enough. Halfway through the second half we just got a bit careless. When the subs came on, it was like a signal that the game was over. I think our fellas slacked off, just got a bit careless.
"We felt ourselves we'd need to be kicking 17 or 18 points with the amount of possession we had in the second half, particularly on the Galway kickout, so we're a bit disappointed with that.
"We had a lot of injuries throughout the league, so we're hoping to get those boys back healthy now and get a belt of training into them in the next three or four weeks."
