Kerry minor football manager Peter Keane.
By Cian O’Connell
Peter Keane added another Electric Ireland minor title to his managerial collection at Croke Park and admitted that he would be willing to discuss taking the vacant senior job in the county.
Last month Eamonn Fitzmaurice stepped down as Kerry boss following their exit at the All Ireland Quarter-Final Group Phase.
Keane is among the frontrunners for the role and was asked about his interest immediately after Sunday’s victory.
“Of course you would consider it if approached, and that's a nice way of asking the question,” Keane replied.
Considering how Keane has maintained Kerry’s impressive record at the minor grade is Keane tempted to challenge himself at the highest level?
“Yeah, that's a very logical conclusion,” Keane admits. “Again, had I started steering my head into that sphere two, three, four, five weeks ago, we wouldn't have won an All-Ireland here today because my head would have been somewhere else.”
Having thundered back into the contest after Galway had opened up a seven point first half gap Keane acknowledged it was Kerry’s sweetest success of their five in a row.
“Yes, on two fronts,” Keane stated. “Firstly yes because the way the match went. Secondly it is a brand new team.
Galway minor manager Donal O'Fatharta.
“We weren't coming here like we had for the past few years when you had the strength of a Hogan Cup and they were backboning your team or whatever. This was pure new in every sense of the word, that is probably what made it doubly so.”
A critical spell in the game was when Kerry trimmed a seven point deficit down to four before the break according to Keane and Galway manager Donal O’Fatharta.
“I would concur with his thoughts, I think we put in a great two or three minutes before half-time, we probably could have got a goal as well,” Keane reflected.
“At one point there we were seven done, we went in four down and was easy to talk to the lads at that point. A goal and a point brings you back into the game, but we kicked on. We had started poorly, we weren't at the races even though we went up four one. We closed down.
“We stopped working and they were destroying us on our kickouts. We had to reset that, we would have to reset it at half-time anyway. It was easier to reset it when you were four points down rather than seven down or maybe more.”
O’Fatharta praised Kerry, who delivered when it truly counted in the second period. “It is disappointing,” O’Fatharta remarked.
“We put a lot of energy into the first-half, I found. It was hot out there. Hats off to Kerry. We knew they were a super team, we were trying to get our guys ready.
“Every team is beatable, but they had a little more quality than us definitely, all over the pitch. Some of our guys played beyond where they were at the start of the year. Look it, disappointed. When you are beaten by a better team, it is easier to take.”
