Kieran Donaghy says he never thought of retiring from inter-county football despite seeing minimal action for Kerry until the latter stages of this year's All-Ireland SFC.

The Austin Stacks man was an unused substitute in the Kingdom's comfortable quarter-final victory over Galway back in August and his chances of getting some playing time in the semi-final didn't look good until Eamon Fitzmaurice sprung him from the bench to change the game against Mayo and save a draw for the Munster champions.

In the replay, Donaghy's goal proved instrumental in the win in Limerick and he'd do likewise three weeks later to help Kerry deny Donegal their second All-Ireland title in three years.

"It wasn't looking good," Donaghy told the Irish Independent. "I always said my motto would be when I felt I couldn't help the team any more I would pack it in. And not helping the team in my eyes was not contributing on the field of play.

"I was in a bad place, I will be honest. My confidence was low and I was kind of half doubting myself as to whether I could still do it. Could I go on and help the team?" he asked himself over and over again.

"It was never in my head to pull the plug. I wouldn't do that because it would upset the rhythm of the team and then Eamonn (Fitzmaurice) would be going in to a semi-final having to answer questions as to why I pulled out.

"So I was never going to go then. But what I was going to do was slip off into the sunset whenever we got beaten or won."

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