Dingle delight as Geaneys edge gripping final against Kenmare
HOME COMFORTS: AFL star Mark O'Connor, Dingle, holds the cup after his team Dingle won the Club Football Championship in Austin Stack Park.
DINGLE will represent Kerry in the Munster Club SFC – if a divisional side wins the Kerry county championship.
The blue riband begins next weekend and East Kerry, the defending champions, are short odds to go the whole way again. Certainly, the west Kerry men would be advised to keep their training ticking over.
They did it the hard way in Saturday’s Club SFC decider at Austin Stack Park, eventually quelling a Kenmare rising that looked like it might take the underdogs over the line. It’s their second club title after a first in 2015. On the other hand, today's loss represents a third club final defeat in four years for Kenmare.
If it wasn’t a decider sprinkled with scores and glittering passages of play it was compelling nonetheless. There were only five scorers in total, and three of them were established Kerry seniors. One of the primary reasons for that was Kenmare’s unbounded appetite for the hard yards that saw them overcome a sluggish opening to hit the front at the three-quarter mark, 0-10 to 1-6.
At that moment, Dingle’s case was suspect, all the more so when they lost midfielder Liam O’Connor to a straight red card in the 50th minute. Kenmare edged two clear, Dylan Geaney reduced it, and then it was who would blink first.
Two factors shifted the momentum west. Firstly, Kenmare tried to see it out. It’s easy to criticise them for waiting for the tape but they withdrew their front-foot approach with ten minutes left.
Their eleventh point in the 48th minute was their last. Secondly, they lost Kevin O’Sullivan to a black card in the 59th minute, and he exemplified Kenmare’s fortitude more than anyone in the previous 58 minutes. Conor Geaney equalised with the free arising from O’Sullivan’s offence, and a minute later Paul Geaney placed Dylan Geaney for the winning mark.
There was enough happening to momentarily forget that Mark O’Connor was in from the start for Dingle – and handed the assignment of dropping back and shadowing Sean O’Shea. It was a tough beat, but O’Connor was still breaking midfield ball in injury time. He earned his flight home.
Kenmare did go 'til the 66th minute in search of extra time. Sean O’Shea won a free 65m out and we wondered had he Croke Park and 2022 in mind. Instead, he worked a chance for Stephen O’Brien whose hurried effort was blocked down.
Shane O’Sullivan had a half-chance from the ricochet, but he was short and wide. It was a gut-wrenching end for Kenmare but for the neutrals in Tralee, the final was an autumnal splash of sunshine, one to savour and squirrel away for the shorter nights ahead.
Dingle enjoyed a springboard start but their questionable finishing kept Kenmare game. It was 0-3 to no score in as many minutes as Paul Geaney made hay from easy frees and it was 13 minutes before a Sean O’Shea free put Kenmare on the board.
Either side of it, though, were frustrating moments that left Kenmare holding their heads. First David Ciuciu’s speculative long-range effort was close enough to post and crossbar to have Gavin Curran scrambling it away.
Then seven minutes before the break, a Sean O’Shea moment that will inevitably find its way onto social media before the day is out.
Dingle and keeper Curran made a hash of possession leaving O’Shea to drill a goalbound effort towards an untended goal from 40m. Agonisingly it hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced clear.
Having already conceded the game’s opening goal on 18 minutes to a clever backdoor cut from Dylan Geaney – adroitly found by Cathal Bambury – Kenmare might have been forgiven for believing this wasn’t their night. That Dingle goal put them 1-4 to 0-2 in front but the next four points came from a resurgent Kenmare side.
Two were from Stephen O’Brien, and his explosive reaction to the latter was a reliable indicator of Kenmare’s growing belief. O’Shea pointed off his left-hand side before adding a 30th-minute free to make it a one-point final at the break (1-4 to 0-6).
One point on the Dingle goal: why don’t more sides utilise the backdoor cut? Jim Gavin’s Dublin showed that, when well executed, it can be a lethal goal-scoring option.
D Geaney (1-3, 1 mark), P Geaney (0-3, frees), C Geaney (0-3, 1 free).
S O’Shea (0-9, 6 frees), S O’Brien (0-2).
G Curran; C Flannery, C O’Sullivan, T Leo O’Sullivan; M Flannery, T O’Sullivan, B O’Connor; M O’Connor, L O’Connor; M Geaney, D Geaney, B Devane; C Geaney, P Geaney, C Bambury.
N Geaney for Devane (40, M Flaherty for C O’Sullivan (42), P Devane for M Flannery (56).
K Fitzgibbon; D Crowley, T O’Sullivan, C O’Sullivan; D O’Shea, T Cronin, D O’Connor; D Hallissey, J McCarthy; D Ciuciu, S O’Shea, J Lehane; S O’Brien, K O’Sullivan, M McCarthy.
P O’Connor for McCarthy (40); S O’Sullivan for D O’Connor; T O’Sullivan for Hallissey (both 49), J O’Regan for Ciuciu (59), T Murnane for Lehane (63).
B O’Shea (Keel)
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