Lacey: Kerry were the team we all looked up to

Take a look back on the Jimmy’s Winning Matches documentary — it’s on YouTube — and it’s clear Donegal in 2012 took more stock out of beating Kerry than any other game.

“We were watching Kerry play quarter-finals, semi-finals, finals year-in, year-out the last 10 to 12 years and, you know, they were the team we looked up to,” said Karl Lacey.

“We’d always seen them as the benchmark of football,” said Eamon McGee. “I always thought to myself coming into the game that this is a career game where you find out whether you’re good enough to be there or not.” He added: “We were up by four or five points at one stage and then I realised ‘we are a good team’.”

Some luck had gone their way too. The freakish early goal, a result of a mix-up between goalkeeper Brendan Kealy and Aidan O’Mahony as Michael Murphy chased in a Colm McFadden sideline kick.

“The one thing we said before the game was we didn’t want to go behind,” recounts Eoin Brosnan. “We felt if Donegal were behind or weren’t able to put together a lead they would have to come at us a bit more and expose themselves. But what happened was we gave away that soft goal and it was us chasing them and not the other way around.”

There were injuries to key Kerry players too during the game, Brosnan having to leave the field in the first-half. It was a key blow after he had brought his fine form with Dr Crokes into the Championship. Darran O’Sullivan started the second-half in his position. Bryan Sheehan was the other casualty 11 minutes into the second-half.

“Bryan was missed for the form he was in and his free-taking,” remembers Brosnan, referring to missed opportunities such as James O’Donoghue’s wide from a 45.

Then there was the toughness Donegal brought. Jack O’Connor, in the documentary, said: “I think Donegal had our measure. The intensity of their tackling caught a few of our fellas out.”

Brosnan claims they also brought something else to their game. “Another aspect that day was the blocks Donegal put on our runners. You were stopped if you attempted to run after passing off the ball. The black card has curbed a lot of that and the game’s better for it. Donegal have moved with the times and have adapted to the black card as well as any county but it was a part of their game at the time.”

Six points behind with four minutes of normal time left, Donnchadh Walsh’s hand-pass across the face of the Donegal goal towards Kieran Donaghy, who was surrounded by two defenders, was speculative, but he managed to find the net. Points followed from Anthony Maher and Paul Galvin which cut the gap to one only for Karl Lacey to slot over the insurance score in injury time.

“We had a chance to level it before then (Paddy Curtin shot wide),” remembers Brosnan. “Had it finished like that, it probably would have been unfair because they had been the better team.”