Former Kerry captain Darran O'Sullivan joined Off The Ball to discuss where the Kingdom fell short against Cork.

The boys clad in green and gold fell short of a Munster final date with Tipperary thanks to a last-gasp goal.

O'Sullivan thinks the quality of the players on the panel is undeniable but that it was likely a lack of hard-earned nous that saw them come up short on Sunday.

Darran O'Sullivan on Kerry

"I think that any day you are picked in a Kerry squad, you are a good footballer," O'Sullivan said.

"I just feel that one team were playing without fear and had nothing to lose, and the other team looked like they were afraid of losing.

"When that fear creeps in, that is when you start to second-guess, doubt yourself and take the easier option. That was fairly evident the last day.

"That is where you want that bit of experience - the fellas that we are very reliant on are Seanie O'Shea and David Clifford. They are 21/22 years old, young lads that we are expecting to bail us out when things aren't going right. None of us expected those two to be really off-colour, and the players around them - it was like a domino effect.

Things just started going wrong, and the more things started to go wrong, the more wrong options Kerry started to take.

"It just gave Cork oxygen, and the fact that they couldn't extend the lead to three or four points, Cork are a confidence team and it just gave them more."

Management

So were there failings in Kerry's coaching that could have been avoided?

"As a management team, you can't account for fellas missing the chances that Kerry missed yesterday," said O'Sullivan.

"Going into the game, I was fairly aware of what way they were going to play - they like to filter their half-forwards back. But then they were breaking at pace with intensity - they looked incredibly fit and powerful in the last two league games.

"They didn't have that yesterday, the conditions were not sorted to that kind of game.

"In my head, I was going 'go back to the old Kerry way - kick.' But we had no link, we had no players on the field whose first instinct was to kick.

"Then I was looking at it from a Cork point of view: if I know that the two wing-forwards are just dropping back, that is music to my ears because I will be bombing on all day.

"That is the way that it was; the half-forward line from Kerry were on the back foot and we just didn't seem to change it. Bringing on Stephen O'Brien in those conditions was not going to suit his game.

"His game is all about hard running, bringing the ball into contact and drawing players in - it wasn't that type of game.

"I felt like we needed to get on a couple of kickers. Micheál Burns, who had a great club championship with Crokes, didn't have the best last two league games but he is a different type of kicker.

"It is easy to say with hindsight but that is what we were lacking; fellas that were looking to get the head up and bypass that warzone in the middle."

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