Relieved to still be in it at all

Well, we knew it wouldn't be dull. Not quite the sparkling climax so widely anticipated, however, and in the Kerry dressing-room, the mixed emotions that surface after a result like this seem to taste more of relief. "I think everyone in here is delighted to be still involved," says captain Seamus Moynihan. "Galway dropped something like three or four balls into the goalkeeper's hands in the last five minutes, so someone must have been praying for us.

"But they really came into the game in the second half and just started to come at us. We probably could have been up even more at half-time, because we really owned the ball for the first 35 minutes. I know we were up by six or seven points at one stage and we should have held that at halftime."

If there was a difference between the Galway that started and the Galway that finished, Moynihan would point to Kevin Walsh. "He obviously made a big impression. He's been around a long time and he's a big, strong physical player. He uses the ball very intelligently. And I think John Donnellan added a lot of physical presence as well. "But Galway are a team that will punish you if they get any opportunity. Luckily enough they didn't punish us as much as they could have, or else we would have been going home with nothing.

"But we'll go back, look at the game and try and find some areas where we can improve. Perhaps the game didn't ignite the way it could have, but it was still very competitive and I think there was some very good football at times. The intensity and the passion was definitely very high, but I suppose there were a lot of mistakes as well.

"We did some silly things with the ball that we shouldn't have done and there was some bad passing as well. But of course a lot of that comes down to the pressure that Galway was putting us under." Kerry seem to be making a habit of losing their hard-earned advantages, in this case the seven-point lead, but according to Dara O Cinneide, it's not something you can correct automatically. "It seems to be a characteristic of the team this year alright," he says, "but what it comes down to I don't know. If we knew what it was, of course, we would probably win every game. But teams like Galway are never going to lie down. We knew there was a kickback in them. We were reminded at half-time that they were down by four points in 1998 and came back to win it."

There was, he says, too much confusion to realise just how fast the clock had ticked down. "It was fairly hectic out there and there wasn't much time to think about it. I didn't really know what time was left until a brief stop in the play and the referee said it was 34 minutes gone. Between then and the end Galway missed a lot more chances than we did. I don't know how much the referee played in the end but it seemed plenty long to me."

Makes you wonder what it felt like on the sideline. Paidi O Se appears genuinely stunned by it all, even though his nerves have already been well tested this summer. "We're so exhausted after that and to be honest, we're not going to do any analysis this evening. We'll take it up again when we get back to Kerry. But I suppose we'll both know each other a little better the next day."

Are there areas where he feels Kerry can improve? "I can't really say at this stage. What we'll do now is sit down and watch the tape, but even though we went six or seven points up, I felt Galway hadn't really started and I knew there was a kick in them."

Donal Daly echoes that sentiment: "It just shows what a fine side Galway are and I expect another tough battle the next day. We're probably a little lucky still to be there, but we never actually thought it was gone. I mean, it's not really an anti-climax. It would be a lot worse if I was sitting here talking to you and we had lost by a point."

After making his now customary second-half appearance, Maurice Fitzgerald also admits the sense of relief: "At this stage, I imagine every person in Kerry that watched the last 10 minutes will be quite pleased that we are still involved in the All-Ireland. I thought Galway had at least two or three chances to go that point up in the end, so we're delighted to be still involved."

Now they have another two weeks to contemplate the replay, but O Cinneide doesn't expect them to be searching for the panic buttons.

"I don't think the extra game will take its toll in any way. It really only means another week's training, but I can't see us doing anymore running up hills or heavy stuff between now and Saturday week. "But we're not worried to be honest, because we had such a short campaign last year and from that point of view it's great. We'll definitely take another game."