MATCH REACTION:It was apparent from the reaction on the terraces and on the pitch with the Kerry players celebrating wildly at the final whistle, that this win over Tyrone was something they savoured.

To Mickey Harte’s credit, he was gracious in defeat. “I suppose with the breeze to their back in the first half, Kerry should have been more ahead at half-time. The fact that they weren’t meant that they had given us a lifeline.

“As the game developed in the second half we needed a goal and we got it. But we didn’t defend it, Kerry struck back straight away and in many ways that was the losing of the game. But it’s maybe the mark of what a good team they are, when they were under pressure they responded with a goal themselves.

“Once we were down to 14 , and when you are playing a team as good as Kerry you are struggling, it became a damage limitation exercise for us after that,” Harte added.

Harte protested about the dismissal of Brian McGuigan “in the context” of the match itself. “It was petulant and unnecessary but surely nothing more than a yellow card at worst,” said Harte.

“Seventeen yellow cards were excessive. I thought when Pat McEnaney became the referees’ boss all that was behind us, I thought we were trying to send the message out that we don’t need a plethora of cards. That message didn’t seem to register with this man today. In every other game I’ve seen this year the card count has gone down – it made for better games but that didn’t happen today.”

Harte said of David Coldrick’s appointment: “I have to say I was concerned that he was appointed. I’m not now taking a position of blaming referees for losing games . . . That is the third game we’ve played that he’s taken this year and while he didn’t beat us, you have to ask yourself what influence these people have on games. I don’t feel he benefits our team a lot; take what you want out of that.”

Jack O’Connor was delighted with Kerry’s display. “We felt that we were not as bad as people had made us out to be. We were six points down against a fired-up Westmeath team last week 10 minutes into second half and yet we fought back to win and we felt we did not get the credit for that. It was a prefect dress rehearsal for today’s game.”