Eamonn Fitzmaurice believes Kerry may have been over-confident going into the drawn Munster SFC final against Cork.

However, after needing a last-gasp point to keep their provincial ambitions intact, he expects a different mind-set for Saturday's replay in Killarney.

"There's no doubt about it, complacency can seep in," the Kingdom manager stated in the Irish Times.

"Because you're in an environment where the general mood around the county, coming up to that game, was one of confidence, and over confidence. Regardless of what you're doing inside in the camp, it's not like in a professional environment, where fellas are very isolated from the real world.

"All the lads are working, and are out amongst the community, so if that's the vibe that's out there, that's the vibe that soaks in.

"Last year, we were trying to protect the players from the overly negative vibe that was out there, before the Cork game. And there was a very negative vibe out there, pre-Cork last year, and we had to try to make sure that that wasn't seeping into the players.

"It was the reverse on this occasion, before last week's game. I don't think there was any over confidence on any player's part, and certainly not on our part, but at the same time, if you're hearing this mantra constantly that Cork aren't up to it, it can seep in, absolutely. And it's hard to protect against it. But thankfully that won't be a factor for the replay."

Fitzmaurice accepts that Kerry were fortunate to earn another bite of the cherry.

"Of course the lads know that," the Finuge man continued.

"You'd be a fool not to accept that. We know we were lucky. And Cork were probably a bit disappointed that they didn't deservedly win the game the last day. So definitely we will have to improve, performance wise, for the replay.

"You would have to give credit to Cork, as they really upped the ante in the second half and this is a feature of teams trained by Pat Flanagan. When he was with us he used the same ploy, so we knew that Cork were going to come strong at us, because Pat targets the third quarter with the way he prepares teams. So it was no shock to us.

"But we did not deal with it well and it's something that we will have to work on."

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