Donnchadh Walsh says Kerry were determined to beat Dublin in Sunday's league final as a tribute to their manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice.

The Kingdom supremo went on the offensive in the build-up to the game as he defended his players against assertions that they were negative and cynical; Walsh says the least they owed him in return was a big performance in Croke Park:

"I didn't know exactly what he'd said, but obviously I got rumblings that he was highlighting that we were portrayed as the instigators of negative play," Walsh states in The Irish Daily Star.

"We just felt Eamonn was putting his neck on the line for us. Bit of payback for him as well, that he put himself in that position where he felt he had to come out and back us.

"So we wanted to back Eamonn again on the field and the only way we were going to do that was by not just performing, it was just by winning."

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