Tomás Ó Sé: Tyrone the more clinical in U20 semi-final

MORE CLINICAL: Kerry U20 football manager Tomás Ó Sé said Tyrone were more clinical. Pic: Matt Browne/Sportsfile

For a full hour, from the third minute to the 63rd, Tyrone led Kerry but it was far from a merry dance.

Down by seven points at the start of the second quarter, Tomás O Sé’s side dug in. They fought the good fight but teams playing catch-up so often find themselves coming up just shy in the end. That was Kerry’s fate in this All-Ireland U20 semi-final.

“You could go through an awful lot of it,” said O Sé. “The slow start we had, it took us 16 minutes to get our second score on the board. When we rattled at them, we dominated midfield, and dominated their kick-out for the end of the first-half.

“You can be talking about it all day, or talking about it for ten or 15 minutes, they were more clinical up front. We had chances and we didn’t take them. That’s basically it.” 

It’s not just that Kerry trailed all day, it was the way that big moments swung against them. Tyrone’s two goals were the very definition of sucker blows, the second especially given it came on the stroke of half-time and undid a fine second quarter for the Kingdom.

“We could never land a killer blow. That goal before half-time was an awful sucker punch. They have quality up front, and they were able to keep the scoreboard ticking over. For us, we struggled at times with that. There were two chances for goals, and I don’t know how they stayed out, but they did.

“On another day, that would have given you huge momentum, but I can’t fault our lads. They’ve been excellent all year long. I can only praise the players, and praise the back-room set-up, and the county board, and the lads we had involved, for another huge year.” 

O Se’s stats team had it that they generated 27 scoring chances across the afternoon and only took 14, just over half, of them. Tyrone had half as many wides. They were far more clinical with the ball in the danger area.

“They worked like dogs all day long and, of course, we knew the Tyrone quality had was going to shine. It had to shine, at times. It was about if we could shine brighter on the other side and, unfortunately, we just came up shy.”