O Se promises Kerry will bounce back again

It's fitting Tomás Ó Sé and Dara Ó Cinnéide are the first players spotted in the Kerry hotel yesterday morning. Not that the scorers of Kerry's two goals are feeling particularly good about themselves. The first words out of Ó Sé are strictly off the record, but for the record they had something to do with Peter Canavan's retirement.

With the sombre reflection of any losing All-Ireland finalists they offer their thoughts on Sunday's defeat to Tyrone. They're exhausted from the effort, and a little frustrated too, knowing Kerry's performance wasn't all it could have been. Yet Ó Sé tried to be upbeat about it.

"Kerry have always proven they can come back," he said. "I was thinking before yesterday that had we lost a lot of players would have walked away, but I suppose now they still feel they've a point to prove. That's what is great about the Kerry attitude.

"They always want to come back up and win more. Especially when they lose. So I think we'll all stick with it, and I hope Jack O'Connor sticks with it too. I've heard no talk of retirement anyway, but if any of the older players do then they owe nothing to Kerry football."

At 26 Ó Sé will definitely be at the heart of Kerry football for several more years. But five of the team that started on Sunday are in their 30s. It's inevitable there will be some changes in Kerry's line-up next year, although the way Ó Sé was talking it sounds like they're already relishing another crack at any of the Ulster giants. Ideally that would have been in two weeks' time.

"Of course I'd love another crack at them," admitted Ó Sé. "I do feel if we'd had a tougher game we could have beaten them. I believe that anyway. I know it didn't look like that on Sunday, but with one or two tougher games we would have been much better off. I mean Tyrone had it fierce tough. Ten championship games, I mean that must be the sweetest victory of all.

"We still felt we'd a good chance at half-time. But they just stuck to their guns. I mean they're very clever on the ball. Anytime we got close again they seemed to be able to go up the field and get a score. So we ended up chasing them for the rest of it.

"Overall as the year went on we just didn't have a good enough test, especially from a forward line like that. I think that's as good a forward line as you'll ever meet. They're slick, they're clever, and they've a great work ethic. They're as good a team as I've ever played, and I think as it goes now they're as successful as any team."

If there was a turning point in the game Ó Sé reckoned it was Canavan's goal just before half- time - even if he was one of the Kerry defenders marked absent: "That really lifted them, and they knocked on a point straight after. So from being three points up we were three points down coming into half-time.

"And yeah, I couldn't understand how Paul Galvin was stuck behind there on his own. I know Michael McCarthy went on a solo run up the field, and normally we're good enough at covering. And we always emphasise that you have to kill the ball if you run up at all. But definitely the backs will have to put our hands up and say we were at fault for that goal."

The hard question Kerry will ask themselves is where they go from here. Ó Sé doesn't predict anything drastic - and maybe they just need a tougher draw next year. "I don't agree with changing the format. But whatever way the draw has fallen for us over the last few years we've had handy enough quarter-finals. When you scrape through by a point or two, they're the games that bring you on in confidence. That Tyrone win over Armagh must have been huge for them."