A goal, a goal, my kingdom for a goal, cries Páidí but ...

YOU don’t wait around in Croke Park after an All-Ireland senior football semi-final defeat, especially not one of the proportions of yesterday afternoon, so less than a half-hour after the final whistle, the familiar “Bainisteor” yellow-top gone, the sneakers cast aside, television duty done, in smart sport-jacket and pants Páidí Ó Sé was looking for the exit door from the corridors underneath the Hogan Stand.

That was the only exit the Kerry manager was taking, however. Ambushed by the media pack, having asserted that this Kerry team would be back, he was asked the dreaded question. Would Páidí be back? “Well, I suppose today, in fairness,” and he paused, began again, “I’ve been involved in football for a long time, from 1973, and I think I owe it to myself and I owe it to my family ... ,” the battery of dictaphones and microphones pushed closer, announcement anticipated, “ ... not to be making such a decision today or tomorrow or the next day.”

Ah, timing, timing, ever the master of timing. Sure what’s the bloody rush? Back to Ventry now, absorb this, take the lumps that sure as winter follows autumn, follows any Kerry championship defeat, no matter what the stage.

The long-time Kerry manager sure has a lot of absorbing to do after this one. Last year’s All-Ireland final loss to Armagh was a game they might have won, a game where Kerry at least looked like the Kingdom, the mightiest football county in history. Yesterday they looked like a side that had never played this game before and in a sense, they hadn’t. It’s Gaelic football alright, but a new brand of gaelic football, one with which the Kerry manager isn’t all that familiar. Twelve Tyrone men behind the ball every time Kerry attacked? More difficult to break down than the All-Black defence, in rugby, surely.

“That’s right, it’s the first time I’ve played against a team using these kind of tactics but sure lookit, it’s within the rules.” Cynical, a cynic ventured? Dismissed out of hand. “Yerra, whether it’s cynical or not, they’re in the All-Ireland final and that’s what really matters to them, it’s immaterial what I think of it. Certainly it worked against us today, but I’ll say it for the third time, if only we’d got a goal.” Ah yes, the third time, a goal, a goal, my kingdom for a goal. Earlier, Páidí had been asked for his assessment of the game overall. “The better team won on the day, no doubt about that, the hungrier team won. The one thing we didn’t want to have happen, happened, they got the good start, picked off three or four very early scores and that gave them the confidence I felt they needed. Had it been the other way around, you wouldn’t know.

“As it was, we left ourselves with too much to do at half-time, although I felt we really came at them in the second half. The blanket defence, pulling everyone back behind the ball, certainly was a factor. We needed to get a goal, really, to get back into the game, if we’d got a goal, you never know.” Half-time, as he said, Kerry had left themselves a mountain to climb. Nine points to two and they were even lucky to have that, their second point a hit-n-hope blast from the left wing, left foot of right-footed defender Marc Ó Sé. Was there still hope in the Kerry dressing-room? “Oh, be sure there was hope, the lads were very upbeat, no problem there. All through the second half they left no stone unturned, they really tried, left everything they had out there on the pitch.” Simple summary, but it really was that simple. Kerry didn’t underperform, they were crushed, trampled, chewed up and spit out by a side whose appetite was voracious, commitment ferocious. Nowhere was a Kerry player allowed to win a ball uncontested, not even out the middle of this new Croke Park expanse.

“Maybe around the middle of the field we weren’t as dominant as we normally are, while our inside forwards were kept to a minimum of scores. Tyrone didn’t concede the goal, and I know I’m repeating myself now but I felt if we could make that breakthrough at any stage of the game, we might have done better. The better side won, we’ve no complaints.”