GAA Digest: Kerry Gaelic football team faces relegation after loss

Brogan Stars in Dublin Win, McGuinness Won’t Fret Loss, Late Score Seals Cork Win, GAA Won’t Split Dublin, Munster Bests Connacht

Kerry Gaelic football team faces relegation after loss

Kerry boss Eamonn Fitzmaurice has warned his team they need to win three of their remaining four games if they are to avoid relegation from Division One of the National Football League.

Fitzmaurice’s side suffered a third straight defeat as Kildare maintained their 100 percent record in Newbridge on Sunday with a 2-8 to 0-12 win.

All-Ireland champions Donegal are next for the Kingdom, and Fitzmaurice admitted after Sunday’s game that time is running out for his struggling side.

“Six points would probably keep you up, but we’re on zero. I think all the teams are going to take points off each other, so it’s going to be very competitive,” he said.

“We have to start getting points on the board or else it is going to be a foregone conclusion that we’re going down. We don’t want to go that direction.”

Kerry hit 16 wides on Sunday, and Fitzmaurice acknowledged that is a huge problem for his team at present as he saw some signs of improvement against Kildare.

“Even if we had got a quarter of them, we’d have got over the line,” he said.

“We’d be pleased with the second half display. When Kildare got the second goal we went six points down and it was kind of déjà vu. Were the lads going to go into their shells, were they just going to accept it?

“But they didn’t, and they showed good stuff and came back. We were probably slightly unlucky in the end. We had a couple of goal chances that on another day would have gone in.”

Kerry goalkeeper Brendan Kealy is also refusing to hit the panic button after a third straight league defeat as they prepare for Sunday’s crunch game in Donegal.

“We were looking for a bit of reaction in Kildare after how the first two games went. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the two points against Kildare but we’ll look at the positives,” he said.

“There’s still a lot to work on but we got a bit of a reaction which was encouraging. We were making some basic errors. There was no rocket science whit what we were doing and what we weren’t doing.”

Kildare manager Kieran McGeeney knows the big test will come when they face Dublin and a rampant Bernard Brogan in the big NFL tie at Croke Park on Sunday.

“It will be hard to beat them, they are flying at the minute. Bernard Brogan seems to be unstoppable and, at Croke Park as well, they will enjoy that too,” said McGeeney.
 
Brogan Stars in Dublin Win

DUBLIN boss Jim Gavin worked hard to deflect the attention away from star man Bernard Brogan after he destroyed Mayo with a 1-10 total in Saturday night’s 2-14 to 0-16 win at Croke Park.

Gavin said, “He’s finishing well but behind him a lot of the hard work is being done. The backs are transferring the ball quickly to him, he’s got into good positions. It was good to see Bernard finishing the scores.”

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Nster.com