Kerry manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice is looking forward looking to next weekend’s local derby against Cork after his team picked up their first points of the Allianz National Football League against Down on Saturday.
Kerry are 5/1 to win this year’s All-Ireland with Boylesports.com.
“Cork is always a big game, even if it’s a pitch opening,” Fitzmaurice said, after the Kingdom saw off the Mourne men in Fitzgerald Stadium.
“But it’s great to have these games, thick and fast. Come the summer time it’s maybe one game a month. In the league, you’re learning things all the time. Some things worked tonight, some things very definitely didn’t.”
Down boss James McCartan knew early on that it was not going to be his sides day, after he lost both Daniel McCartan and Aidan Carr through injury:
“Everything that could go wrong, went wrong,” he said.
“We had to shake it all up at half-time, we set up differently to try to frustrate them and maybe edge our way back into things. They were probably getting a wee bit itchy along the line and on the field. But we were taking wrong options by hoofing the ball into the full forward line. You’d nearly think they were instructed to do that, and we didn’t win one of them all night.”
