How to dismantle the zone defence: reflections on Kerry’s Croke Park clinic
THE SILVER SYMBOL: Star man David Clifford with Kerry GAA head of athletic development Jason McGahan and Chairman Patrick O'Sullivan, mind the booty on the team's departure from Sallins and Naas on Monday. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
THE architecture for Sunday’s devastating All-Ireland final performance was a collaboration of minds and ideas in Camp Kerry. Both selector James Costello and coach Cian O’Neill have mentioned Jack O’Connor the delegator in terms of sharing the load and the lead on strategy. “He’s old school with a twist,” is how selector Aodán MacGearailt described it.
It helps when you have a freak like David Clifford as your offensive plus-one, but what of Donegal’s zone plus-one defence, and the questions its ‘malfunction’ left hanging in the ether on Monday? Most of the pre-final analysis indicated that, tactically, Donegal and McGuinness had Kerry down cold. In its wake, we are all a bit nonplussed.
The obvious downside is it reduced the Donegal players in that defensive bloc from 11 to 10 with Brendan McCole hugging Clifford and the Hogan Stand touchline. The extra space, and Kerry’s efficiency against the zone defence is best illustrated by Sean O’Brien’s 13th-minute point. I asked a couple of basketball nerds – they have some game too – what are the inherent weaknesses of the zone plus one.
Explained former international Conor Meany: “Zone defences struggle against multiple things. Having to cover a lot of ground, good shooters stretching them out, smart play-making and movement between the zones. Playing a zone and matching up with Clifford simply meant that the defence had more space to cover as if it was a man down. That is manageable, if there aren’t scoring threats forcing you to extend out to the two-point line. The combination of space, good playmaking without pressure and movement within the zone was fatal for Donegal as they ended up giving up too many scoreable opportunities.”
The excellent Ciaran O’Sullivan, another international and Superleague head coach in Cork, concurs: “Kerry deployed every weapon in the anti-zone playbook: ball reversals, inside touches, penetration, quick decision-making, hard cuts through the lines, and constant pressure to prevent defensive resets.
“Paudie Clifford operated like a point guard - 76 touches tell you everything you need to know. His ball reversals constantly shifted the defensive structure, and here’s the key: Kerry moved the ball quicker than Donegal could rotate. No hesitation. Sharp decisions. Smart shot selection. The zone never settled - it stayed off balance from start to finish.
“The depth in attack won’t grab headlines - they didn’t see much of the ball - but their positioning was vital. Sean O'Brien and Mark O'Shea pushed up from midfield, while Dylan Geaney floated just behind the zone. Their presence stretched the defence horizontally and vertically, forcing Donegal to respect multiple threats and opening up driving lanes for the cutters.
“Then came the killing blow: hard, well-timed cuts through the seams. O’Shea, O’Connor, O’Beaglaoich, and White ran with intent, finding space between rotating defenders and generating real advantages. And the finishing touch? David Clifford’s looping runs. The plus-one defender kept losing focus, and Clifford punished him with scores that stretched the zone beyond its breaking point.
“That’s how you dismantle a defensive rhythm: with pace, poise, and precision."
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PAUL Galvin’s phone took a recent ramble into the corridors of Fitzgerald Stadium to remind all of the legacies left behind to Kerry by the likes of Páidí Ó Sé, Tim Kennelly, John Egan and, of course, Mick O’Dwyer. Twenty two years ago when Jack O’Connor replaced Ó Sé as Kerry manager, Kerry’s loss to Armagh (2002) and Tyrone (2003) were his primary reference points for renewal. Two of the first 2004 call-ups were Aidan O’Mahony and Galvin himself. The Finuge man patented being champion of the dirty ball, timing interventions for midfield scraps like a Swiss timepiece. Swoop down on the carpet, emerge from the ruck, deliver with precision. By 2009 he was footballer of the year.
Football’s redraft in 2025 reasserted the primacy of midfield dominance, whether by primary or secondary means. Once they hit Croke Park Kerry, as they so often do, delivered the exampla gratis of how to swoop in a timely manner on midfield scraps – Gavin White, Mike Breen, Brian O’Beaglaoich, Joe O’Connor et al all delivering dividend with a skill Galvin honed two decades before. There are many different legacies.
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LOVE for Kerry was in short supply last week among the commentariat. The conventional wisdom indicated Jim had Kerry’s number, that Donegal’s bench had greater oomph, and, above all else, that David Clifford’s suffocation would mean a weight too heavy for his Kerry team-mates to burden. Very little was made of the most important commodity in management. Experience. And of the greatest virtue that it brings. Judgement. On players, situations, scenarios. And perceived crises.
Driving home from Tullamore on the day of their ‘fairly sobering’ defeat to Meath, there was little panic. Jack was driving the bus. Only when he backs it into a corner do those around him see the colour of his cheeks. This is what 20 years of experience as a senior inter-county manager delivers. The right word. The appropriate sentiment. The absence of hysteria and war-room hyperbole.
He was asked Monday: what was the greatest priority the week after Tullamore? “To keep morale and belief in the squad that we still had a chance.” Drawing Armagh in the quarter-final was the bat and ball he needed. A bit of carrot here, a bit of stick there. Would he say, all told, that this July was his finest hour?
He might not. We can.
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QUESTION: Who was the last Kerry manager to step down after winning an All-Ireland? Hint: He’s been chatting again about doing it now. Jack O’Connor handed on the baton to Pat O’Shea after the Kingdom’s 2006 success against Mayo, but before that, we can think of no-one, certainly not in the age of the manager. It’s not usually the done thing. In nominating a County Board chairman with the requisite tools to talk Jack O’Connor into one more year, few are as well-equipped as Patrick O’Sullivan, the Kerry chairman. ‘The Bag’ was a consultant to Donald Trump’s ‘Art of the Deal’ memoir (or so they told us in The Tatler…), and when it comes to making unlikely things happen, he has few peers. Hence, why no-one’s sniggering at grand plans for the expansion of Fitzgerald Stadium. Operation One More Year began before they’d started the main course in the Burlington on Sunday night.
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THAT Kerry would prosper with the FRC game changes is certainly a truism. Implied in that is that Kerry always win high-scoring shootouts to which one might point to a recent All-Ireland semi-final against Tyrone. Kerry’s one-on-one defending is as good as the redefined boundaries allow – Jason Foley will win an All-Star for it – but there’s little point gainsaying the obvious. With an accumulated 8-62, (0-86), David Clifford has taken the mantle of the highest scoring forward (from play) in football championship history, raising the bar to levels beyond mortals. He scored 1-25 from the quarter-final on. Clifford bagged 8-48 from play. Alone. Next closest championship marksman was Galway’s Rob Finnerty, who is a yawning 37 points behind. Clifford scored 0-9 from play against what some consider the best man-marker in the inter-county sphere. And so on.
If the new rules are good for football, David Clifford is a walking billboard for the game. Pat Nolan of pointed out after Sunday’s final that it was the highest aggregated score total in final history - the joint tally of 48 points eclipsing the 45 points from Cork's defeat of Galway over 80 minutes in 1973 (3-17 to 2-13).
Consider this amount of fags waved by umpires - David Clifford has bagged 22-221 since his 2018 Championship debut.
Presumably a few opponents raised white flags too.
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DRIVING to Kealkill in west Cork of late, a Kerry football sage set me straight with something obvious, yet devastating. No one outside the Kerry camp really understands how important Sean O’Shea is in the aggregate. He is literally the glue holding it all together. For fear of dissing players who started for Kerry against Meath in Tullamore, Jack O’Connor was careful not to underline the loss O’Shea was in missing that game. He wasn’t around for a lot of Kerry’s spring campaign, but as he got his troublesome knee in order, his form improved and his leadership qualities became more pronounced – a hand around the shoulder, a bollocking if required. After the Cavan win in Killarney, Jack O’Connor described him as the spiritual leader in the dressing room. He shot the lights out against Armagh for sure, but that short-changes his real currency behind closed gates and doors.
“I know I'm like a broken record, but I keep saying that Seán O'Shea was missing that day (against Meath). He's a massive part of that unit because he just knits everything together. He does a bit of everything. He wins kick-outs, he tackles, he links the play, he sets up scores and he kicks scores and he organises for us. I know that's a lot of stuff for one man to do. So he's like the conductor of the orchestra on the field. That was the one week where I was really down before the game because I knew he was missing. So I wasn't overly surprised that we didn't play well up there.”
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WE slid down the sofa and onto the floor when Gavin White had his last-minute, short free pickpocketed by Errigal Ciarán in the classic All-Ireland Club SFC semi-final last January. How? How could it happen? How could a man with all his experience and guile do that when Dr Crokes were leading by a point?
First reaction is always the most facile. Should Shane Murphy the keeper have made himself available behind White and returned the pass? Shouldn’t the jet-heeled White himself haven’t been the one on the receiving end? Isn’t it all so easy be the expert with the remote control? There were opportunities in the interim to ask him about it, but I hadn’t the inclination, much less the stomach.
But the Dr Crokes man has balls. Of steel. Quiet and reserved, it was easy see the respect and affection of his peers for him when RTÉ announced their All-Ireland final man of the match from the team hotel. Captain and man of the match. They call that atonement. Sweet atonement.
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SOME other half-framed thoughts: how remarkable it is for Jack O’Connor to complete five All-Ireland and League doubles?
All the talk of David Clifford’s scoring might be moot but for his appeal for the Kerry public to get on board the All-Ireland special to Croke Park after their victory against Cavan in Killarney.
Oisín McConville raised an issue on Monday morning: "If those boys stay angry there is a few more All-Irelands in them"
IT’S been revealing watch this Kerry group develop as individuals and friends over the last while. What was the big surprise new selector (and former Kerry minor manager) James Costello found when he got his feet under the table this spring?
“Their work ethic, their commitment to each other, to the group, it's a really tight group. That probably surprised me. Looking in from the outside, I didn't realise the group was as tight as it is. They're very tight. Their commitment to improvement, individually and collectively was probably they were the two things that surprised me.”
Fogra: Sunday’s ten-point win for Kerry was the biggest winning margin in a final since the Kingdom beat Cork by the same in the 2007 decider – the historic first final between the Munster rivals.
