Jack O'Connor: David Clifford’s magic gave us a bit of belief
MAGIC: David Clifford celebrates. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile.
Thrills, spills and bellyaches for Malachy O’Rourke in particular as the rules he was part of formulating came back to haunt for the second week in a row.
In truth, it was David Clifford’s three goals spooked him most in Pomeroy’s fine Plunkett Park after Omagh’s O’Neills Healy Park was ruled unplayable on Saturday morning.
But Kerry suffered no noteworthy punishment for losing Clifford and Joe O’Connor to black cards in the fourth quarter of this game as they were allowed to retain 12 players in their own half of the field.
In that time, Tyrone failed to score. In fact, they managed a solitary effort between Mark Bradley’s goal, which came as a result of O’Connor’s black card to the full-time hooter.
Five points and two points up, Tyrone played their fair part in their own downfall, which leaves them in a relegation battle with two points from four games, but as he was after the Mayo game O’Rourke was left counting the cost of the black card anomaly as he sees it (although Tyrone took advantage of it in the first half when Eoin McElholm was sin-binned).
He bemoaned that afterwards as he did the kick-out rule as Kerry feasted on Niall Morgan’s late restarts.
“Obviously, I was on the rules committee myself, but that is just one thing that I don’t particularly like, that every kick-out has to go outside the arc, and every kick-out has just become a 50-50 one in many ways.
“Maybe that’s a bit of a retrograde step now looking at it because if you look at hurling, hurling has gone a different way and they have seen the value of retaining possession, and the game has changed that way, while football has nearly gone the other way at this stage.
“It is all 50-50 ball, so my thinking would be you can allow the kick-outs to be taken just outside the small circle, it might leave more variety in the kick-outs and it wouldn’t become a 50-50 battle all the time.”
O’Rourke also felt Tyrone didn’t get the rub of the green from referee Paddy Neilan.
“Well, I felt that a lot of the 50-50 stuff we weren’t getting. I was frustrated but you’re obviously biased when you’re with a team. I certainly thought we didn’t get any handy ones anyway and I thought they got a lot of softer frees. I’d need to watch it back.”
To complete another death-defying trick in Ulster, it was hardly officiating that Kerry relied on. Clifford’s poaching was lethal. How Kerry commanded the skies in the closing stages was huge. Damien Bourke gave a solid account of himself in the full-back line too.
Jack O’Connor was thrilled for his men after a couple of difficult weeks.
“We got no two-pointers so it was the goals, David’s bit of magic that got us back into it particularly the third goal. It got us back where we wanted and it gave us a bit of belief.
“Jason Foley had a massive game. Our half-back line was very strong, Mike Breen had a savage game at centre-back. We needed all that at that stage and thankfully the boys Joe and David were fresh when they came back on.”
Like they did in Derry at the start of the month, Kerry provided the late, late show although similar to the Dublin loss it appeared they were going to regret not converting goal openings. Two minutes into the second half, Niall Morgan denied David Clifford after brother Paudie squared the ball to him.
Kerry fired over a free after advantage was afforded to Paudie Clifford but another chance for his sibling went abegging two minutes later as his right-footed shot spanked the crossbar.
Tyrone capitalised in the 45th minute when substitute Darragh Canavan found the net. Mark Bradley hand-passed the ball across and Ciarán Daly played decoy for the Errigal Ciarán man marking his 2025 inter-county return to score.
Tyrone went seven points ahead a couple of minutes later. Clifford added his second goal in the 49th minute, Paul Geaney again involved in providing the opportunity.
Points followed from Geaney (free) and Diarmuid O’Connor to make it a two-point game. However, Kerry hit the self-destruct button with black cards, first for O’Connor for denying Darragh Canavan a goal-scoring opportunity. Bradley’s 52nd minute penalty kick for the infringement was saved by Shane Ryan but he followed up on the parry to raise a green flag.
David Clifford was also sent to the sin bin for a trip but Kerry weathered the storm and reduced the gap to three and soon after his return to the fray Clifford completed his hat-trick in the 66th minute.
Michael McKernan, so good from long-range in the first half, dropped a relatively easy strike short. Clifford made no mistake with two frees and Graham O’Sullivan put the icing on the cake in the final minute.
Kerry’s start was the healthier. They had four points racked up by the ninth minute and it wasn’t until a minute later that Tyrone picked off their opening score, the first of a brace of first-half two-pointers by McKernan.
By the end of the half, Tyrone had raised four orange flags, almost as much as they had done over the previous three outings. A dynamic Mattie Donnelly was causing Kerry much difficulty and won two converted frees, the second of them in the 31st minute a two-point version from Canavan.
David Clifford ended a 11-minute spell without a Kerry score two minutes from the end of the half when he slid the ball past Niall Morgan. The Fossa man’s handling of a hand-pass in from Paul Geaney was as vital as the strike. And he wasn’t finished.
D. Canavan (1-4, 1 tpf, 0-2 frees); M. McKernan (0-4, 2 tps); M. Bradley (1-1); C. Kilpatrick (1 tp), D. McCurry (2 frees) (0-2 each).
D. Clifford (3-3, 0-2 frees); P. Geaney (0-3, frees); B. Ó Beaglaoich, D. Geaney, P. Clifford, J. O’Connor, D. O’Connor, D. Casey, G. O’Sullivan (0-1 each).
N. Morgan; A. Clarke, N. Devlin, P. Teague; F. Burns, M. McKernan, R. Brennan; B. Kennedy (c), C. Kilpatrick; M. O’Neill, M. Donnelly, C. Daly; D. McCurry, M. Bradley, E. McElholm.
D. Canavan for M. O’Neill (22); R. Canavan for D. McCurry (47); S. O’Donnell for F. Burns (52); P. Harte for M. Donnelly (59); K. McGeary for E. McElholm (66).
E. McElholm (7-17).
S. Ryan; D. Bourke, J. Foley, D. Casey; G. O’Sullivan, M. Breen, B. Ó Beaglaoich; D. O’Connor (c), J. O’Connor; D. Lyne, P. Clifford, R. Murphy; D. Clifford, P. Geaney, D. Geaney.
C. Geaney for D. Geaney (47); B.D. O’Sullivan for D. Lyne (57); M. Burns for P. Geaney (65); P. Murphy for B. Ó Beaglaoich (69).
J. O’Connor (52-62); D. Clifford (53-65).
P. Neilan (Roscommon).
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