By Francis Mooney
Kerry boss Eamon Fitzmaurice has admitted his defence will have to stop conceding goal chances.
Tyrone created three genuine opportunities which they failed to take, and could well have had a second penalty to add to the one that Peter Harte scored in the second half.
The All-Ireland champions made it through to another final by virtue of a sparkling attacking display which saw them kick 18 points, but former centre-back Fitzmaurice says things need tightening at the back.
“They did create goal chances, we gave away the penalty. It’s something that we’re going to have to look at,” he said.
“But sometimes you can put the emphasis too much on ourselves, but you have to give Tyrone credit as well.
“We were playing a serious running team in an All-Ireland semi-final, and that’s their biggest strength, when they come at you in numbers through the middle. They can open you up and they can create those goal chances.
“It’s something we’ll have to look at, but it’s great that we’re there and we’ll be looking at it for the next couple of weeks, and not looking at it next February.”
Eamon Fitzmaurice showed bottle in making big calls. The sign of a great manager @Kerry_Official
— Martin Kiely (@MartinKiely1) August 23, 2015
Fitzmaurice knew that his side would have to be patient, and one of the major challenges was to be able to counter-act Tyrone’s short kick-outs, from which they attempt to launch many of their attacking plays.
“We knew that they were going to try and do that, and we were going to try and counteract it as best we could, but they’re a very good team and they were going to make it hard for us, which they did for periods of the game.
“We went through a phase in the second half where we looked to have things under control, and we gave away a couple of sloppy passes which led to the penalty and a point afterwards, and that put us back under a bit of pressure again.
“But again in think you have to give great credit to the players. They dug deep, that bit of experience was there. We have been in tight spots before and there was no panic.
“Fellows kept trying to do the right thing, and thankfully we just about had enough at the end.”