Kieran Donaghy says he was provoked into getting sent off by Aidan O'Shea in the closing stages of Kerry's All-Ireland SFC semi-final replay loss to Mayo.

In a column for AIB, the Kingdom full forward gives O'Shea credit for being the aggressor in their titanic duel on the edge of the square. Donaghy ended up receiving a straight red card after striking out at his Mayo marker as Kerry sucummbed to a 0-17 to 2-16 defeat.

"Myself and Aidan O'Shea may have been seen smiling away to one another, but the reality was far from that," he wrote.

"We were in each other's faces throughout both games, real physical stuff and when one of us won a ball, we weren't long in letting the other man know about it. Very little of what was said could be printed here but, if you'd recorded it, I'd say RTE or even Sky would pay a nice few bob to get a half-hour long show out of it."

Having had the upper hand in the drawn encounter, Donaghy got little change out of a succession of markers in the replay.

"It wasn't always O'Shea on me, it was changing every few minutes - Donie Vaughan, Seamie O'Shea, even Brendan Harrison for a short while - and it can be hard to get into the game and get a feel for how to play your man when that's happening.

"In my book, I had a chapter on how you can't be the reactor in sport, you must be the aggressor. Aidan was the aggressor, and fair play to him, Mayo will need that in spades Sunday. I reacted to the dark arts and ended up getting sent off and losing the game. Other than that, it was as enjoyable a season as I've had in over 13 years playing with Kerry."

Elsewhere in the column, Donaghy revealed that he has yet to make a decision on his inter-county future.

"I haven't had a chance to think about playing for Kerry next season because I haven't had a moment's rest since the inter-county season ended for us. It's been right back at it with Stacks and basketball, not to mention that baby number two is on the way. So I'll come to that decision another day," he added.

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