Late mistake proves costly as Kerry fail to finish the Dubs off

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE DIVISION 1

GUT-WRENCHING. There’s no other way to describe it, the way it panned out.

In the then and there it would have been hugely disappointing. To describe it as an anti-climax hardly does it justice. It was worse than that, much worse. And yet, given time, the blow will undoubtedly soften.

Probably by now it already has. The players, the management and the supporters will view the positives as far outweighing the negatives. In the grander scheme of things the difference between one point for a draw and two points for a victory is marginal.

Instead what Kerry took from the game was much more valuable. Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s men left Stack Park last Saturday night with the knowledge that Dublin aren’t as far ahead of the chasing pack – well Kerry anyway – as everybody seems to think.

The health warning that this wasn’t Dublin’s first fifteen needs to be applied, but by the same token neither was that Kerry’s strongest side. There’s more to come, a hell of a lot more, from both sides, meaning that if and when these two teams meet again in late summer we’re in for a treat.

As aperitifs go this league encounter really was rather tasty. Big hits, big scores, big passion. A little taste of championship football many months before the provincial championships get underway.

The Kingdom attacked the game with the ferocity of men with a point to prove, be that to themselves or everybody else it matters not, the effect was the same. Dublin had started the game much as they often do, cool and calm and in control, Kerry needed to disrupt them and that’s what they did.

Fitzmaurice’s men won some vitally important turnovers early on. Frustratingly despite all their good work it took the Kingdom eight minutes to register a score. In fact they could have had the ball in the back of the net just three minutes in when Paul Geaney fed Paul Murphy, who struck wide under pressure.

Kerry’s first score came courtesy of a fine move. Peter Crowley took the ball on the break from David Moran and split the posts. With that score the confidence seemed to surge through Kerry. Their second score came a just couple of minutes after that, Geaney slotting over masterfully from the left off his left to double Kerry’s advantage.

Dublin soon replied – a free by Dean Rock – but the scores dried up for a time. Twelve minutes passed before Geaney pointed a free on twenty three minutes. That’s not to say those twelve minutes were dull.

They were anything but. A schmeozzle broke out in the Dublin goalmouth coming up the twentieth minute mark with both Geaney and Stephen Cluxton earning themselves yellow cards. It was that type of game, always on edge, skirmishes breaking out all over, an absolute nightmare for a referee, a rabble rousing delight for both sets of supporters.

Still for all Kerry’s good work and brilliant attitude they never really put much distance between themselves and Dublin in the first half. Swapped points by Conor McHugh and Brendan Kealy (a ‘45) made it four points to two after twenty seven minutes.

Coming up to half-time Dublin had even wrestled the lead from Kerry following a couple of Rock frees, before Geaney restored parity at five apiece. It was the very least Kerry’s efforts deserved.

The Kingdom then started the second half like a runaway train with four points without reply. A Geaney free, a Geaney point, a brilliant point from play by David Moran and a first inter-county score for the industrious Kevin McCarthy (assist second half sub Stephen O’Brien).

It was about now that Jim Gavin started to call upon the cavalry. Cian O’Sullivan was on at halftime. Paul Flynn six minutes after that again. Bit by bit Dublin were getting a stronger team on the pitch and eventually that began

to tell on the scoreboard.

To Kerry’s four without reply Dublin replied with six of their own (four frees from Rock, a point from play by McHugh and another by Eoghan O’Gara) a powerful statement, even if we should note that Geaney had a great chance for a goal saved by Cluxton on fifty three minutes. From looking solid and in control to listing dangerously in the space of just ten minutes, that’s what Dublin can do to a team, even Kerry.

Trailing by two – eleven to nine – with less than ten minutes to go Kerry needed a strong response and thanks in part to a number of effective substitutions by Fitzmaurice Kerry found it within themselves to strike back.

Geaney pointed two frees on sixty one and sixty two minutes to level the game back up, before Barry John Keane (assist Crowley) fired Kerry back in front twelve points to eleven. On the stroke of seventy minutes Donnchadh Walsh (assist O’Brien) made it a two point game.

Now the Kerry faithful truly believed, but this Dublin team is hardly ever beaten. A Rock free on seventy one minutes made it a little too close for comfort, but a when Peter Crowley won a free with just seconds remaining on the clock that seemed to be that. Kerry had done enough.

Of course that’s not how it panned out. Paul Murphy took the free, but, instead of finding a man clad in green and gold, found Shane Carthy. That led directly to Paul Mannion’s equaliser.

Heartbreaking and, as we say, gut-wrenching. Not the end of the world either. It didn’t erase what went before. The positives remain.