Brendan Hackett lamented Kildare's lack of a winning tradition after they were hammered by Kerry in yesterday's All-Ireland MFC semi-final.

Despite winning three of the last four Leinster minor titles, the Lilywhites haven't been able to follow up with All-Ireland success and Hackett feels tradition has a lot to do with it.

"You learn to win, everyone says they're born footballers down in Kerry but they're not, it's the environment they're in," the Kildare manager contended.

"Compare that to the environment that's in a lot of other counties and that's what has to change. We would have tried to change that in the last couple of years in Kildare, and look, three Leinster titles is a lot of success.

"They just have an understanding of the game in Kerry, I've been around enough teams over the years to know it. To me, that comes from looking at quality teams and quality players all your life. So visually they have something to look at that the Kildares and these teams don't have.

"Let's be honest, Kildare have won two (senior) provincial championships in 50 years, these young fellas have never seen Kildare winning anything. They've seen Kildare playing in Division 2 and Division 3 so they don't have the pictures to look at that the Kerry lads have."

The Monaghan native added: "Kildare's schools aren't winning anything. So you're all the time doing your best from a much lower base."  

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