Kerry stars Tadhg Morley and Fionn Fitzgerald were in no mood to rest on their laurels after helping their county capture the Allianz Football League Division 1 title at Croke Park this afternoon.
The Kingdom edged out Dublin by 0-20 to 1-16 to land a first league crown since 2009 and bring an end to their opponents' unbeaten streak, which had stretched to 36 matches across the league and championship.
When Paddy Neilan blew the final whistle, celebration amongst the Kerry players was decidedly muted, and Morley and Fitzgerald indicated in their post-match interviews that the focus would rapidly shift to emulating their league heroics in the championship.
“It was a positive result in the end, but there are a few things we need to work on come the championship,” Morley told RTÉ Sport.
“It’s nice to come up to Croker and get a trophy. We kind of needed it; we haven’t got a bit of luck against the Dubs in a while.
“It was a close game but we’re happy.”
Kerry trailed the Dubs by 0-09 to 0-10 at the interval, but dominated for a 20-minute spell after the restart to lead by 0-17 to 0-12 before Jim Gavin’s men rallied.
“That was the plan. You always want to start well in the second half in the first 10 minutes,” Morley said. “It didn’t happen in August last year - they came out and did that to us.
“They came back into it; they got a soft goal and there are some things that we need to improve on.”
The defender was adamant that remain the team to beat in the championship.
“They’re a great team,” he said. “It doesn’t change much for the summer, they’re going to be favourites again. They’re seasoned campaigners.
“It’s a big confidence booster, obviously, to come up and beat the Dubs. They’re the best team in the country.
“We’ve a few players coming back from injury and we’ve the under-21 lads as well.
“It’s going to be an interesting summer, but this is not going to change much. The Dubs are there to be knocked off their pedestal.
“It’s only the league, the championship is the main one. We’ll be happy with today, but the main one is in September.”
Kerry captain Fionn Fitzgerald on the desire within the side to hang on for victory against Dublin in the league final pic.twitter.com/kmn0Um3ueD
— RTÉ GAA (@RTEgaa) April 9, 2017
Reflecting on the victory, Fitzgerald said: “It’s a massive win for us.
“I think the league is very topsy-turvy; last week we didn’t even know if we’d be in a league final.
“It was a bonus to get to the final and then we said we’d have a right go at it. We felt we had a good chance, I think we hung in there very well towards the end, particularly when Dublin came at us again, and it was a satisfying win in the end.
“We’re not going to get carried away, it’s still only a league final in relation to the championship, but it’s a boost and we’re happy with the performance.”
