By John Harrington

Kerry footballer Paul Geaney admits watching last Sunday’s All-Ireland Final as a spectator at Croke Park was a ‘sickening’ experience.

Geaney had been convinced that Kerry would contest and win the All-Ireland Final this year, so not even making to the big day was a bitter pill to swallow.

But he still went to the match because he wants to learn everything he can about the Dublin and Mayo teams so he can hopefully use that knowledge to help beat them in 2018.

“It was painful enough, yeah,” said Geaney. “It was a good day, a good spectacle but it is sickening enough not being on the field on All-Ireland final day.

“It is what you are built to do and what you are hoping to do every year. It is fairly gut-wrenching alright to see someone else lift the cup and not even being able to contest it.

“I could have been the only one from our team in Croke Park the last day and I can guarantee you that there were a couple of fellas that did not even watch the game.

“I come because I want to learn how to beat Dublin/Mayo. Every day is a school day.

“Kick-outs from my vantage point was something that I was interested in. Mayo did extremely well off Cluxton’s kick-out.

“You saw Jayo running in to him in the first half to change up and try and get their hands on ball. It is not often you see anyone going into Cluxton to tell him what to do with his kick-outs so that was interesting.”

Geaney's former team-mates Tomás Ó Sé and Colm Cooper have suggested that Kerry will struggle to win an All-Ireland in the next year or two, but Geaney doesn’t agree.

“I suppose up until the semi-final I was convinced we were going to win it this year,” he said.

“But, looking back, we seemed to have peaked at the Munster Final and went downhill from there, things didn’t go our way at all.

“We were well off the pace in both the Mayo games looking back now, and even the Galway game we were poor, we were sluggish.

“We have to try to peak later in the year to give ourselves a better chance.

“Any given day you’d fancy our chances to beat Mayo or Dublin, that’s the top two there. All you’ve got to do is beat one of them and you’d win the All-Ireland because the other one might be beaten by the other anyway.

“You’ve just got to keep coming back to try to get into position. I don’t know what their views are based on, that the Dublin team is so good that they can’t see Kerry beating them…

“I think you need a lot of luck to win an All-Ireland as well, and I think if a bit of luck would go our way we could definitely win it.

“We need to improve a few small areas – there are too many scores going against us, that’s probably where we start. I would say it’s too early to be saying we can’t win the All-Ireland over the next couple of years, that’s a big statement to be making.”

In Kerry, any year you don’t win the Sam Maguire Cup is regarded as a failure.

And the fact that it’s their great rivals Dublin who have put three All-Ireland titles in a row together since Kerry’s last win in 2014 has made it an even more bitter pill to swallow.

“Yeah, it started with us in an All-Ireland Final against Dublin when we were going for back-to-back,” said Geaney.

“That was a tough day because we were so poor – Dublin were poor that day too but we were very poor. That kinda got the wheel turning for them.

“They’ve now done three in a row and they look hard to stop, extremely hard to stop. They’ve a really strong bench as well, good management, good system, they look imperious at the moment. It’s up to us to try to bridge that gap.

“It is hard to take, yeah. A bit more so for me this year. Last year was easier to get over after two weeks, three weeks, but I think there’s a long winter ahead for me to be looking at and feeling sorry for myself. I’ve no club football left either, so it’s hard. There’s no option but to move on.

“I’ll be thinking about the All-Ireland from now on until we get a chance to win it again next year. It’s sickening enough, all right.

"It's something I said maybe two years ago, I didn't want to be a player playing when Dublin have a golden era and it looks to be unfolding that they had a golden era since 2011 when they beat Kerry.

“They're in a golden era this minute, the only thing I can try to do to stop that is win an All-Ireland or two before I hang up my boots. It looks pretty tough to do at the moment and we are doing everything we can to try and change it. We've come up short the last two years."