Kerry ladies manager Declan Quill: 'We contested a national final and weren't too far away in the end really'

Not that it has always that way – last year he was able to bask in the glory of Kerry recording a brilliant National League final victory over Galway, but since then there has been the heartbreak of losing last August’s All-Ireland final to Dublin, and now Armagh have stripped Kerry of their National League crown.’s

Quill was, naturally, disappointed with Sunday 2-12 to 2-9 defeat to Armagh, but nowhere near as devastated or as emotional as after the All-Ireland final loss. Quill said after that loss that it felt like a death, but he knows that there is an awful lot of very big football games still to come this year.

“You never turn up your nose at a national final,” he said after Sunday’s game. “We did come up here to win today. It wasn’t an aim of ours to get to the final, in a way, but that’s the way we ended up and you never turn up your nose to it but, look, when we’re here we’re going all guns blazing to win it, but it just didn’t happen for us today.

“We’ve the Munster Championship to focus on now in two weeks time so we’ll give the girls a few nights off and we’ll reconvene next Friday night and hopefully the minds and bodies will be fresh, and we’ll be ready to give the Munster Championship a good go.”

Kerry got a fortunate enough goal at the start of the second half that might have driven them on. Instead, it was Armagh that took the game by the scruff of the neck and this was something that Quill was hugely disappointed with although he did point out that they now have the opportunity to work on their mistakes going forward.

“Our goal was fortunate but it put us on a good path in the second half but we weren’t really able to take advantage of it. When you get a bit of good luck you have to build on it and that’s not something we did. We missed way too many chances to win a game; in a national final you have to be very clinical, and I think that Armagh were a way more clinical than we were.

“The chances that they got they stuck away. We’ll have to look back over the tape, but I’d say the amount of chances that we missed was criminal really.

“There was a period of time in the first half when we were very much on top and we were stuck on 1-1, 1-2 , for a long long time, and 1-4 by us at half time is a very poor return for a half of football.

“I know the wind was very swirly out there and all that but if you ask any of the forwards they’ll tell you that they missed easy chances themselves . It’s not good enough to win a national final, but is it detrimental to our long term hopes? I don’t think so, we’ve a lot to work on and that’s not a bad thing either.

“We could have taken a few more points when we had the chances. The second half seemed to go on forever. There was so much time left. Sometimes I looked up and I thought the game was gone and there was still sixteen minutes left so it’s just something that we have to realise and put into our performances that points in certain times of the game are really crucial.”

Quill was fulsome in his praise for the way that Eilis Lynch managed Aimee Mackin. The Armagh star did come to life in the second half and showed what she’s worth but overall Lynch did an excellent man marking job.

“That’s the job we gave Eilis, she’s an All Star and an outstanding footballer,” said Quill of his managements decision to put the Castleisland Desmonds girl on Mackin.

“They call Eilis the ‘rash’ for a reason and she’s absolutely brilliant. She’s a nightmare to mark. Look, Aimee Mackin is going to score. You have to concede that she’s going to score 1-5 or 1-6 a game and if you can keep her to that you’re doing well. She got 1-4 today and I would have taken that at the start of the game.”

Finally, Quill was humble in defeat and accepted that the better team had won on the day.

“I think all credit due to Armagh, they were fantastic. They were definitely ahead of us in fitness levels at the moment. They’re similar to us last year; we trained really really hard to stay in Division One last year and ended up winning it. We’re not as far down the line as we were this time last year.

“That’s not too bad either. We contested a national final and weren’t too far away in the end really.”