O’Connor delight as tactical master stroke works wonders

NORMALLY reluctant to discuss his players individually, jubilant Kerry coach Jack O’Connor heaped praise on a number of individuals following yesterday’s demolition of Galway in the Allianz NFL final at the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick.

“The introduction of Eoin Brosnan and Darren O’Sullivan to our forward line worked wonders for us in the second half,” said O’Connor.

“However, the contribution of Colm Cooper was exceptional. We are very fortunate in Kerry to have a player of his calibre. He’s a great bit of stuff. He won a ball for Paul Galvin’s goal that God nor man wouldn’t win and set Paul up for a killer goal.”

Describing the final as “the proverbial game of two halves”, O’Connor admitted Kerry were “very disjointed in the opening 35 minutes” and that Galway’s game plan had worked very well.

“Any time we built up an attack, they funnelled men back behind the ball and we struggled to cope. We were fortunate not to be further behind at half time and the break afforded us the opportunity to regroup and make a couple of what turned out to be very influential changes.

“I have to give great credit to our backs, particularly in the first half for the way they soaked up the enormous pressure Galway applied.”

O’Connor also paid tribute to the Kerry attackers.

“Darren O’Sullivan also gave us a better structure to our forward formation. He played it very wide on the wing which allowed us to play into the corners, which opened up their defence.

“The free-taking of Brian Sheehan was exceptional. He is an exceptional kicker of a dead ball and his general play is improving with every outing. He is worth his weight in gold for his free-taking alone.”

Galway manager Peter Ford said he was at a loss at to why his side faded so badly in the second half after playing quite well in the opening 35 minutes.

“For all our first half outfield advantage we had only a three-point lead to show for it. Kerry came at us in waves on the changeover, introduced a couple of players who were very influential for them, and once they got the run on us we were powerless to stop them.

“Kerry looked a lot fitter than we did and that is something we’ll have to look at. We seemed to tire, maybe because we put such a huge effort into the first half. We needed to be further ahead to justify that effort. The last 25 minutes it was all Kerry. They simply owned the ball, punished every mistake we made and we can have no complaints about the final outcome.”