Monaghan footballer Tommy Freeman has described Sunday's dressing-room in the aftermath of the All-Ireland quarter-final defeat as the worst he's experienced. Monaghan lost by just a point to the champions, Kerry, who did not take the lead until the 68th minute.

"It was the worst dressing-room I was ever in, because there's a very fine line and if we had got over it you wouldn't have known what might have happened. I wouldn't like to be in a dressing-room like it for a long time.

"It was very bad. You wouldn't have heard a pin drop at least for a solid hour. We didn't come up the road just to put on a show; we came up to win.

"Unfortunately Kerry's experience came through in the end. The breaking ball for the goal was a killer and they needed that."

Freeman was still in Dublin yesterday to receive the Vodafone Footballer of the Month award for July. His arm heavily bandaged, he explained that a cut had become infected and required surgery last week. The bandage had been removed for Sunday's match.

It's been a year of great improvement for the county.

Manager Séamus McEnaney took the team to promotion in the National League and also to the Ulster final, where they lost narrowly to Tyrone.

Sunday's performance was the county's best in Croke Park for a long time and evoked memories of the drawn All-Ireland semi-final in 1985 against Kerry, then also champions, and the NFL semi-final of two years later, when Monaghan lost out to a late Kerry charge.

Freeman said he didn't want to dwell on decisions by referee David Coldrick, some of which cost Monaghan important frees but others of which - including the decision to disallow a goal by Kieran Donaghy - might have balanced the account.

"At the end of the day the result's not going to change," he said, "and we're not going to point any finger at referees. He made the decisions he thought were right and in the heat of the moment it's hard to get them all right. But there were a couple of decisions that could have cost us the game."

At the end of an absorbing tussle with Marc Ó Sé, Freeman watched the outstanding defender block an excellent goal chance.

"To this day I don't know how Mark got down on it. He got the half block and put it out for the 45. It was going into the net, but Mark's a great defender and I think he saved Kerry with that block."