Easy as Pie for Kingdom
Ever since pundit Martin Carney paraphrased Don McClean on the afternoon Kerry lost to Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh with his day-the-music-died reference, the tune-related metaphors have been hard to avoid. We just felt we had to join in. Led Zeppelin, you know? Saturday evening in Fitzgerald Stadium was billed as a decider for the title of team of the decade, though both Kerry and Tyrone are, er, without an All-Ireland in this current decade: maybe it was to award retrospective bragging rights.
If so, then Kerry’s emphatic victory gives them all the advantages when time travel is invented. They were well out of sight of Tyrone long before the final whistle, and could even afford a round of olés being chanted in one of their final passing patterns.
A 10-point winning margin entitles you to a fair amount of boasting. An exorcism for those three Croke Park defeats, though? Maybe.
It was a third-round qualifier, after all, though it satisfied the Kerry public in a Christians-v-Lions at the Coliseum kind of way.
First impressions were that it was a niggly, cranky encounter with plenty of nonsense going on off the ball. Second impressions and a good perusal of the video didn’t contradict that first impression. It was difficult not to feel some sympathy for referee David Coldrick because when players are so intent on acting the gobshite then there isn’t a lot he can do.
One county prides itself on playing stylish football and the other county prides itself on its tactical acumen; with that in mind there was a lot to be embarrassed about.
For Tyrone the game had all the hallmarks of not just a learning experience, but possibly the learning experience. Looking beyond the Gormleys and the Mulligans, it was a first glimpse of green and gold in a championship context for several players: you could almost predict that over the next few years there’ll be plenty of pointed references in newspaper interviews with those Tyrone youngsters about the lessons learned in the heat of Killarney last weekend.
On Saturday’s evidence you’d also presume they’ll be putting those lessons into practice without the likes of Ryan McMenamin and Stephen O’Neill. It didn’t help the Tyrone cause when the latter couldn’t start and the former isn’t what he used to be: a pity, because it means one less outing for the term ‘abrasive’ every year.
Tyrone are not at that stage yet, but the day is coming when they’ll field a team which doesn’t have a player who has a Celtic cross rattling round in a biscuit tin at home. The challenge then is to maintain the tradition begun in 2003.
(On a not quite related note, a word about Mickey Harte. Having endured the horror of losing his daughter last year, the ineptitude and exploitation which have followed, thanks to the Ruritanian clowns of Mauritius, must have made recent weeks almost unendurable. The
dignity and calm he showed on Saturday were amazing.)
Would we be writing about the end of an epoch if Kerry had lost? Good question. Kerry’s famine at minor and U21 levels exercises the minds of football followers in the south-west, and on Saturday they featured a player who began playing inter-county football the decade before the decade before this one.
Still, Tomás Ó Sé (34) looked as vigorous as ever, while lateral thinking like retreading Eoin Brosnan as a centre-back, or reinventing Kieran Donaghy as a full-forward — remember that — has always reinvigorated them during summer campaigns. The present belongs to Jack O’Connor, and the Kerry manager had a hatful of positives to keep him company on the long road down around Ballinskellings this weekend.
The return to form by his marquee forwards was one, as was the display of Bryan Sheehan, who looks like one of these players who’s only truly appreciated when he’s not around.
Only a few weeks ago Kerry were bringing their goalkeeper 90 yards up the field in Cork to miss 45s; Sheehan’s languorous kicking style would have made that game even more interesting if he had been present, while he started the move for Kerry’s crucial goal before giving the final pass to Kieran Donaghy.
Is it all good news? Kerry beat a Tyrone side which lost Stephen O’Neill before the throw-in, one that’s had to make do and mend without Sean Cavanagh all year.
Tyrone also managed two points in the first 33 minutes, and didn’t score after the 46th minute.
Jack O’Connor can justifiably point to the excellence of his side’s defending as a major factor in those droughts, but it wasn’t the only one: the balls which dropped short into Kerry keeper Brendan Kealy’s hands indicated a lack of confidence in the kickers.
Kerry also hit a string of poor wides in the run-up to half time, until Declan O’Sullivan steadied the ship with their sixth point. True, O’Sullivan’s effort sparked points from Paul Galvin and Colm Cooper, but it was an uncharacteristically wayward spell. Too harsh? Not when you consider the way Kerry lost the All-Ireland final last September.
To shake another cliché out of the box, no team will enjoy facing Kerry from now on. For our part we wouldn’t enjoy many more nigglefests like Saturday’s; maybe the next day we’ll see a feast of pure football. Unrealistic? You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one, as Martin Carney never said.
