Peter Keane always believed that Kerry had a chance of winning the All-Ireland final against Dublin despite being massive underdogs ahead of the final, which finished in a 1-16 to 1-16 draw at Croke Park.
The two sides must meet again following the highly entertaining football final at GAA headquarters and while Keane admitted a sense of anti-climax following the draw, the Kerry manager is already looking ahead to the replay
Kerry had a one-man advantage for more than half the game after Jonny Cooper was sent off just before half-time and while the Kingdom eventually clawed back a four-point half-time lead, Keane believed that it was a sign of the quality of the opposition that his side came up against.
"Yerra, I suppose the history was on Dublin's side looking for five in a row," said Keane, speaking to RTE Sport after the game.
"They have won the last four as we all know, and they didn't exactly get them in lucky bags.
"They earned them and they were obviously red-hot favourites coming into today.
"I suppose a draw is an anti-climax no matter what way you look at it. Dublin will think they could have won it and we’ll think we could have won it.
"But we’ll get ready for Saturday week and see where we go from there.
"They are a good team and it took us a bit of time to gather ourselves, but we got our noses in front and that’s the way it goes."
Keane made some inspired changes in the second half with the introduction of Killian Spillane and Tommy Walsh whose contribution of 1-02 closed the gap on the reigning champions and even saw Kerry sneak ahead as the game approached the final stages.
And it was that duo that came off the bench who combined for the vital goal, scored by Spillane, which set up the exciting finale at the Dublin venue.
But Keane heaped praise on the squad and spoke of further competition for places ahead of the replay, which is scheduled for Saturday, 14 September.
"We have always said that it is a 21-man game on the day and we’ll have a few more looking to get in for the replay," said Keane.
"We always believed. If you didn’t think you had some sort of a chance you might as well stay at home. We didn’t take 12 or 13,000 Kerry people to Croke Park just for the spin.
"We’re not worried about what people are thinking, we are only worried about ourselves."
