JIM McGuinness paid tribute to what he said was a brilliant Kerry performance on a day of deep disappointment for Donegal.
The Donegal manager said his players were guilty of making mistakes while in possession, something he said is very uncharacteristic of the team.
And while they managed to stay in touch with Kerry for much of the contest, even reducing the lead to just four points in the second half, Kerry just had too much for them.
“Sometimes in life you’ve got to put your hands up and you’ve got to take it on the chin and unfortunately today was one of those days for us,” McGuinness said after his team’s 1-26 to 0-19 defeat at Croke Park.
The manager was keen to praise his players, despite the disappointment.
“They’ve put a massive shift in and they’ve given it their all from the beginning of the year,” he said.
“They are a good group to work with they are very focused in terms of what they want to do.
“Today is not a good day for us and not a good day in terms of what we wanted to achieve.
“I’m very disappointed for the people of Donegal that it didn’t work out. They were here in their droves today and didn’t get the performance which is disappointing.
“We didn’t deserve to win the game. We didn’t do enough to win. Sometimes you just have to let performances slide, and this is one of them.”
SEE MONDAY’S DONEGAL NEWS FOR MORE FROM MC GUINNESS AND COMPREHENSIVE COVERAGE FROM SUNDAY’S BIG GAME
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