Sunday’s Super 8 defeat to Galway was a wake-up call for Kerry and their supporters.
The Kingdom cantered to the Munster title and it was thought that they were certainties to make the All-Ireland semi-finals.
But those plans are hanging by a thread following their opening All-Ireland quarter-final round robin defeat to the Tribesmen, with only a late goal making it look close as the game ended 1-13 to 1-10.
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According to 1998 Galway All-Ireland winner Sean Ó Domhnaill Kerry fans may have gotten carried away with big wins over Clare and Cork at provincial level and they got a rude awakening at Croke Park.
"One thing I wasn’t surprised about is the way Galway played," said the former midfielder, speaking on the RTÉ GAA Podcast. "We’ve honed a system and it didn’t change against Kerry, which was a good thing to see.
"We knew it would be very defensive, but what was a shock was what the Kerry supporters saw – this was a wake-up call.
"Clare were no good, Cork were no good and their supporters and Pat Spillane on The Sunday Game were saying ‘we’re playing more attacking football’. Those two games, the space Kerry had it was easy to run up big score and they didn’t have that space against Galway.
"Take (David) Clifford out of it, (Paul) Geaney, (James) O’Donoghue, (Sean) O’Shea, (Stephen) O'Brien, (Kevin) McCarthy were totally starved of possession.
"Galway were able to starve them of possession and keep the scores down. The Galway full-forward line between (Shane) Walsh, (Damien) Comer and (Ian) Burke put up 0-08 between them and that was the key thing."
