Ó Sé's boys summon finest hour to end Kerry's longest wait

Manager Tomás Ó Sé said the final win over Tyrone was the best performance he had seen from his side in four years.

ON A HIGH: Kerry captain Paddy Lane throws the Clarke Cup in the air as he celebrates with teammates after their side's victory in the Dalata Hotels Group GAA Football All-Ireland U20 Championship final match between Kerry and Tyrone at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Kerry’s longest famine in inter-county football is over.

There were the 13 years between their U21 titles in 1977 and ’90. They had to wait the same period for a fourth All-Ireland minor title in 1946.

But in the time taken to capture another Dalata Hotel Group All-Ireland U20/U21 title a generation of players like David Moran, Tommy Walsh, Killian Young and Shane Enright have come and gone.

If, as Jack O’Connor once intimated, Kerry experience famines in dog-years, 18 would have felt a lifetime. But with a dismantling of Tyrone’s kick-out and some outstanding individual performances the dog days are over.

Afterwards, manager Tomás Ó Sé brushed aside questions about the pressure he had been under in his fourth season to deliver the Clarke Cup. If it didn’t consume him, he wouldn’t have been alone. O’Connor himself had the role for three years and might have expected to have won one but for David Clifford and Seán O’Shea skipping the grade.

Not that Ó Sé didn’t have his own issues this year between senior and school commitments. “I'm sick of saying it lads, it's very difficult. We only had those lads fully back mid-March, that was it and it started early April, so six players came back in mid-March that we hadn't all year.

“My brother (Marc) was in charge of that (Tralee CBS) school's team and we had war. We didn't talk for a few weeks, so it is hard but it's hard for everybody.” 

This was Ó Sé’s fourth stab at it and to beat Tyrone after they had ended Kerry’s last two championships would have made it all the sweeter.

In a break from tradition, Kerry flew to Dublin on the day of the game. But staring at an eight-point deficit 19 minutes in, Ó Sé was questioning that mode of transport.

“I'd be a man of habits and we flew up this morning and it was different than anything that I've ever done,” he said. “It was still probably the right decision but halfway through the first half, I was saying, ‘I don't know.’ 

“We just seemed leggy, we were chasing shadows, they were moving, the ball so quickly that we couldn't get a hand on them and their inside men were doing serious damage.” 

You will have to search far and wide for a better score than Evan Boyle’s 26th minute two-pointer. The kick-out fetch was sumptuous, the strike gorgeous. But it was the context that made it so special. Kerry had just gone seven points behind. They were outscored 1-4 to 0-1 in the previous 15 minutes.

In grabbing that ball, Boyle had grabbed the game. His score was the first of nine without reply. Tyrone would score just two more times.

Kerry trailed by just two at the break, 0-9 to 1-8, and were ahead by the 39th minute as they obliterated Tyrone’s restarts akin to how the seniors feasted on Armagh’s last summer. By the end, the Ulster champions had lost two-thirds of their kick-outs.

Where Boyle left off in the first half, Gearóid White carried on, sending over two excellent two-point frees but otherwise being a constant menace to this Tyrone defence.

Tyrone’s goalscorer Shea McDermott ended his side’s 24-minute scoreless drought in the 49th minute and quickly added another to bring his side to within two points.

But Kerry responded with another bevy of scores including a White two-point free and a Tomás Kennedy free following Conor Devlin’s black card trip on White and Kerry were out of sight.

“Evan Boyle had a trojan first half there,” said Ó Sé, “and we stayed in it and that last 12 minutes I think we outscored them seven points to one, which was massive and it gave our lads a platform for the second half.

“We wanted to focus on moving the ball quickly, it hurt them and we didn't do it in the first half and we turned over a pile of ball and I think we turned it over 10 times and they scored seven from it, but I didn't foresee how dominant we would be in that second half.

“They kept the ball away from Evan Boyle, they put a wing-forward on (Daniel) Kirby and they hit Kirby's man, so for our lads to win the breaking ball and to score after it, it was brilliant.

“It was great to see and it was as good a performance as I've seen out of any 20s team that I've been involved with, that second half, in the last four years.”

The first U20 final in Croke Park in five years made it all the more special. Ó Sé had called for the game to receive a bigger billing than previous seasons. He got his wish but he thinks it was luck.

“The only thing I didn't want was that it go the following Wednesday (after the semi-finals). I thought it would have been reckless and I would have been fearful that had it been a team that was closer geographically, they would have played it the following Wednesday. I think they would have.

“But the fact that it was Tyrone, there's no way you could have played that midweek and I think it would have benefited Tyrone as well. They had injuries. We had Killian Dennehy (coming back) and when I did hear two weeks and then Croke Park, I was delighted.”

Scorers for Kerry: G. White (0-5, 2 tpfs, 1 free); T. Kennedy (0-4, 3 frees, 1 mark); E. Boyle (1 tp), D. Kirby (0-3 each); E. O’Flatherty, K. Dennehy, R. Carroll, P. Walsh, J. Joy, J. O’Sullivan (0-1 each).

Scorers for Tyrone: S. McDermott (1-6, 1 tpf, 1 free); A. McGurren (0-3); P. Colton (0-1).

KERRY: K. Robak; M. Lynch, G. Evans, D. Stack; E. O’Flaherty, A. Ó Beaglaoich, P. Walsh; D. Kirby, E. Boyle; S. Ó Cuinn, G. White, J. O’Sullivan; R. Carroll, T. Kennedy, P. Lane (c).

Subs: K. Dennehy for M. Lynch (24); D. Hogan for P. Lane (inj 34); J. Joy for R. Carroll (46); D. Sargent for S. Ó Cuinn (52); M. McKivergan for J. O’Sullivan (60).

TYRONE: O. Watson; S. Broderick, L. Neeson, M. McNamee; A. Quinn, C. Devlin, B. Gallagher; E. Donaghy, C. O’Neill; C. Sheehy, L. Hughes, T. Muldoon; A. McGurren, P. Colton, S. McDermott.

Subs: R. McCullagh for P. Colton (35); J. Concannon for T. Muldoon (53); D. Donaghy for A. McGurren (54).

Black card: C. Devlin (56-ft).

Referee: T. Murphy (Galway).