Galway introduce Kerry’s callow talents to senior football
Yesterday morning when awakening to the realisation that our summer drought had been temporarily disrupted, those of us with a more positive disposition heading to Croke Park would have been mindful that a previous Galway-Kerry All-Ireland quarter-final played at headquarters had also been accompanied by considerable precipitation.
The Monsoon Classic of 2008 was a purist’s delight — Micheál Meehan in his absolute pomp, kicking 10 points; Declan O’Sullivan, Gooch, and the Twin Towers of Donaghy and Tommy Walsh at the other end in full flow. In the end Galway lost, 1-21 to 1-16, but you’d hardly have known in the deluge of praise proclaiming football as the real winner.
Ten years on and Galway care very little if football wins, as long as they do. All season they’ve given the appearance of a side that has had enough of the ‘that was great fun, lads, thanks for the game’ patronising platitudes, like when the same two counties met again here in 2014 and as recently as last year. For all the incremental progress they’d made under Kevin Walsh in previous seasons, they still hadn’t won anyone’s proper respect along with a Joe Brolly’s attention. When you have him giving out about you, you must be doing something right. It means you’re relevant again, bordering on gaining everyone else’s respect again.
They’ve certainly won Éamonn Fitzmaurice’s, for a while now, judging by his post-match comments yesterday. When asked if Galway had proved they were legitimate contenders for the All Ireland, the Kerry manager replied that he didn’t need yesterday’s game for evidence of their credentials. As he pointed out, they went all seven games of the league unbeaten. They put it up to Dublin in the league final. They beat Mayo — in Mayo — for the third consecutive year and won Connacht.
“We met a team that are a bit further down the road than us, who were that bit more streetwise,” said Fitzmaurice.
For Galway, that must register as quite the compliment, if not quite the one they’re seeking — ‘All Ireland champions’ is clearly the tag they’re after. But ‘more streetwise’ has a lot better ring to it than ‘fancy dans’, which, while never quite publicly articulated by anyone since John O’Mahony’s side responded to that charge in 1998, would privately and widely have been the perception of the Tribesmen since O’Mahony’s departure.
Last season Gary O’Donnell talked about how for years they and the rest of Connacht were bullied by a Mayo team that “played senior football”. Now Galway are the ones playing and introducing callow opponents to senior football, even ones as talented as Kerry’s rookie class.
With Croke Park providing such a subdued atmosphere this past weekend, a review of its suitability for the opening round of the Super 8s is inevitable, but for Galway it was monumental that this victory occurred at this venue. In 2002 they entered another quarter-final round against Kerry as reigning All-Ireland champions and lost, setting in motion a winless championship record at headquarters that lasted until yesterday. Stellar talents like Meehan and Finian Hanley retired without ever experiencing the high of coming out of Croke Park having won a senior championship match for their county. Now, like Monaghan a few hours earlier, this Galway team have shaken that monkey off their back and a whole new bright future could be opening up for them.
What further eliminated any prospect of yesterday’s game being one for the purist was that Kerry were also hell-bent not to lose in the same manner to their opponent as they had on the last occasion. If Galway were determined not to be so open and naive as they were in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final, then Kerry were fixated on not coughing up as many goal chances as they did to Walsh’s men back in the league down in Tralee. Yesterday, not only were goal chances at a premium — with both teams on course to keep a clean sheet up until injury time — but in the first 35 minutes even point-scoring opportunities were scarce.
It was an awful spectacle for that period, 0-3 apiece, but then seemed to spark at that juncture upon the announcement that there would be eight minutes’ injury time. Shane Murphy came up to nail his first free in Croke Park, from Cluxton circa 2011-2015 range, but, if anything, Ruairi Lavelle’s restart was an even sweeter strike of the ball, masterfully picking out Shane Walsh to set in motion a move that ended with a Damien Comer point.
Comer was excellent again yesterday, albeit in a more understated way and with considerably more support than in the league final here to Dublin in April. There can’t be a forward in Ireland better able to win a free, in the most complimentary and honest meaning of the term; in the 46th minute with one rampaging run it took three Kerry defenders to — illegally — stop him in his tracks.
But as much as Comer remains the fulcrum of the attack, this is a balanced forward line. Ian Burke’s creativity and movement is finally getting the recognition it deserves, while off the bench they have instant impact material too, Adrian Varley booming over two vital scores and Kieran Molloy then goaling before the end.
Which invariably begs the question of Kerry: Where was Donaghy? While a wiser Galway defence was never going to be bullied by him the way they were last August when he waltzed through for a rare left-footed goal, he would surely have offered Kerry an outlet and more so, their subdued supporters a rallying point upon his introduction, similar to the 2015 All-Ireland final against Dublin, if not the famous 2014 semi-final against Mayo.
What made his impact all the more dramatic on that occasion was that he had been an unused substitute the previous day, another All Ireland quarter-final against Galway, back when it was the westerners’ custom to be in — and lose — shootouts. His response against Mayo was as much out of temper as anything and for Kerry to get out of Clones with a win next weekend they’re going to need something as elemental as Donaghy and his temper to call upon.
But they’re going to need more than that. If a quarter-final against Galway was the launching pad for James O’Donoghue’s devastating performances in the All-Ireland series back in 2014, then a subdued performance against the same opposition last year was the start of a drastic falloff in form. Yesterday he was similarly subdued.
If Kerry are to do anything in this All-Ireland series with such a young side, they need someone of O’Donoghue’s age and talent profile to recapture his form in Munster, whatever about that of four years ago.
The one bright spot yesterday was the performance of David Clifford. Galway in Croke Park has been an accommodating rite of passage for prodigious Kerry forwards — Gooch racked up 0-4 against them in 2002, Tommy Walsh 0-3 in that monsoon in 2008, Paul Geaney 0-4 against them in 2014 — but David Clifford outscored all of them, finishing on 1-5 from play.
Normally in an All-Ireland quarter-final, a late goal like his would be considered academic; not this year. It could well come down to points difference, and the difference between losing by seven — as Kerry were with 90 seconds to go — and three is massive.
The Super 8s may not have had a superb opening weekend, just like the hurling didn’t really take off in its opening week. But as Tipperary losing in Limerick had consequences, Kerry’s defeat here has made things interesting. Certainly a lot more interesting than the manner of that defeat.
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