Kerry's embrace of new rules helped them to collect 39th All-Ireland SFC title
CHAMPIONS: Kerry celebrate with The Sam Maguire Cup. Pic:©INPHO/Ryan Byrne
This, we should have seen coming.
Kerry may be hierarchy but when it comes to new rules, they have been fleet of foot to embrace them.
Fifty years ago, they won an All-Ireland with the allowance of the open hand-pass among other tweaks. When all hand-pass scores were banned a handful of years later, they sucked it in and were champions again.
Their jubilee team celebrated before this final won in a year where substitutes were increased from three to five. Paul Geaney and Paul Murphy were around in 2014 when they last beat Donegal in a final to cap a season when the black card was introduced.
You can have all your Jack O’Connor league All-Ireland double, lucky Hill 16 side dressing room and Kerry playing in blue piseogs but when the parameters of the games has shifted, so have they.
Until they arrived in Croke Park, they mightn’t have been setting the world alight with two-pointers but Armagh knew all about it last month and here they outscored Donegal five orange flags to none.
“We played eight games in nine weeks in the league in bad conditions,” opened the ageless O’Connor about why they took time to warm to the new rule. “There wasn't much time now to be working on two pointers. We're basically recovering and doing a bit of fitness work and basic stuff during the league.
“So as soon as the league was over, we went to the training camp, we started working at it then because there was a bit of an art in getting the right shooters on the ball at the right angles and coming on the right cuts and stuff.
“So it was around then that we started working on it and we didn't see a big need to work on it in the league because, first of all we didn't have time to do it, and second of all we were scoring goals which were kind of camouflaging the fact that we weren't getting two points or so. Simple enough, simple as that.”
Donegal didn’t look capable of scoring them and trying to claw back a seven-point half-time deficit without them their task was going to be onerous. Wedded to the system, they didn’t help themselves either when most of Donegal was screaming out for Paudie Clifford to be shadowed.
In performance and tactics, Kerry outclassed Donegal. Gavin White was a supreme leader, Paudie Clifford may as well have held a baton in his hand such was his influence and with yet another handsome haul David Clifford is line for a third footballer of the year award.
Hugh McFadden had been withdrawn from the Donegal starting team in the hour before the game. Caolan McGonagle was expected to start but probably not at the expense of the Killybegs man. McGonagle was his team’s second scorer but he had a slack enough first half and he wasn’t alone in this Donegal team who seemed shellshocked by the intensity of Kerry’s beginning.
White won the toss and chose to enjoy the breeze into the Davin Stand in the first half and he led by example when he blitzed onto the ball from the throw-in and fed Dylan Geaney for the first score after just 11 seconds.
Oisín Gallen responded in the second minute but Kerry picked off the next couple of points. Seán O’Brien punched a ball to the edge of the square over the bar then Kerry won the resultant kick-out and White cut in from the wing to fist over another point.
After McGonagle’s point, White repeated the trick only this time with his foot and soon enough Donegal were shifting Ciarán Moore from Joe O’Connor’s side to pick up White when he came forward.
Donegal’s problems extended beyond White, though. Paudie Clifford was orchestrating so much and while Finnbarr Roarty was pushed out onto him his marking was surprisingly loose.
The elder Clifford opened his account in the eighth minute, one of four Kerry scores without response. David Clifford thumped over his first of three opening-half two-pointers in the ninth minute after a McColgan error. He raised another orange flag three minutes later and then O’Brien doubled his contribution.
Donegal were reeling but Gallen offered some respite with a point but Clifford was fouled outside the arc by Brendan McCole and Seán O’Shea applied the punishment to stretch Kerry’s lead to eight in the 15th minute.
O’Brien was everywhere and made a big block on a Roarty point attempt before Clifford’s tally grew to five following a McGonagle error.
When Michael Murphy kicked a free against the post and a goal move involving him and Ryan McHugh was overcooked, it seemed too much was going awry for the Ulster champions.
However, Gallen was on hand to make sure that attack counted for something in the form of a 22nd minute point and the following three scores were Donegal ones, two from Murphy, as the gap collapsed to four.
Ending eight minutes without a score, a O’Shea free for a dubious Roarty foul on Paudie Clifford followed by Geaney’s second steadied Kerry only for those scores to be cancelled out by Conor and Shane O’Donnell.
However, Kerry killed the clock sufficiently enough at the end of the half to tee up David Clifford for a crowd-rousing third two-pointer. He clenched his fist to the Kerry following as he wheeled around to head to the dressing room having put his side 0-17 to 0-10 up.
McFadden’s introduction along with Jason McGee’s earlier made a contest of Kerry’s kick-out and was key to Donegal getting back within four points midway through the second half. That and Michael Murphy’s boot, four converted frees in the third quarter.
White’s third point made it a five-point game in the 54th minute although he appeared to overcarry. McGee was infringed upon for Murphy’s fifth free of the half and Murphy slotted it over.
A couple of two-point free opportunities came Kerry’s way within three minutes. Shane Ryan slipped for the first won by Paudie Clifford but when Paudie claimed another one Seán O’Shea drew it over and Kerry were six to the good.
That became seven when a Donegal kick-out was pounced on and Paudie Clifford applied the finishing touch with his fist. David Clifford brought his total to nine and it was appropriate that another star of the season, Joe O’Connor, applied the coup de grace with a final-minute goal.
If this was his namesake Jack’s last gift to Kerry as manager, it was a beautiful one. The old dog learning new tricks and teaching them too.
: D. Clifford (0-9, 3 tps); S. O’Shea (0-6, 2 tp frees, 1 free); D. Geaney, G. White, P. Clifford (0-3 each); J. O’Connor (1-0); S. O’Brien (0-2).
M. Murphy (0-8, 6 frees); C. O’Donnell (0-4); O. Gallen (0-3); S. O’Donnell (0-2); C. McConagle, D. Ó Baoill (0-1 each).
: S. Ryan; P. Murphy, J. Foley, D. Casey; B. Ó Beaglaoich, G. White (c), M. Breen; S. O’Brien, M. O’Shea; J. O’Connor, S. O’Shea, G. O’Sullivan; D. Clifford, P. Clifford, D. Geaney.
: D. O’Connor for S. O’Brien (50); K. Spillane for D. Geaney (54); E. Looney for B. Ó Beaglaoich (63); T. Morley for M. Breen (65); M. Burns for G. O’Sullivan (69).
: S. Patton; C. McColgan, F. Roarty, B. McCole; E. Gallagher, P. Mogan, C. Moore; C. McGonagle, M. Langan; R. McHugh, C. Thompson, S. O’Donnell; C. O’Donnell, M. Murphy, O. Gallen.
: D. Ó Baoill for C. Thompson (inj 23); H. McFadden for C. McColgan (h-t); J. McGee for R. McHugh (inj 40); P. McBrearty for O. Gallen (50); J. Brennan for E. Gallagher (58).
B. Cawley (Kildare).
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
