Kerry never rattled in battle with the Banner
Damian Stack was in Cusack Park on Sunday afternoon and left wondering whether the Banner truly believed they could beat Kerry
IT was almost as if they were shy about declaring their support too vociferously when the teams came out onto the pitch for the first time, fearful and fretful or at least doubtful about their team’s chances.
The Banner emerged first from beneath the stand to be greeted with a ripple of polite applause. When the Kingdom followed suit a few minutes later there was no such equivocation from the Kerry faithful.
The cheer which greeted the men in green and gold was full throated and sustained, as well it might be with confidence on something of a high about the team’s chances following the victory over Dublin in the National League final.
In the moment it seemed a fitting conclusion to draw that there were simply more Kerry supporters in attendance than locals. As the game wore on that assumption was tested, forcing a rethink.
Maybe there were more Kerry supporters in Cusack Park than Clare supporters. If there were, there wasn’t a hell of a lot in it. Once given something to cheer about the Banner faithful weren’t reticent about it.
When their team attacked the Kingdom with abandon in the first half, the Clare supporters rowed in behind them. Given a reason to believe, they roared their approval. At times it felt almost possible to get swept along with their enthusiasm.
Was it possible they could confound all expectations and pull off an even greater shock than that of twenty five years ago? Here and there, very fleetingly, it was just about possible to construct an argument for it.
At the beginning of the second half Clare surged to an early lead of two points. With the breeze at their backs – not insignificant as anybody who walked the pitch after the game will attest – and with Kerry down to fourteen men, Clare had a sniff of something special.
Kerry’s resolve and response ensured that’s all the Banner got – a sniff. Kerry rarely if ever looked rattled. They’ve seen this movie countless times before. They know their roles, they know the plot points and the ebb and flow. Most of all they know the ending.
No reason whatsoever to panic, which is not to say there wasn’t reason for the occasional injection of urgency. There’s a world of difference between confidence and complacency and for all their confidence Kerry were never going to slide into a state of complacency.
Not with guys like Peter Crowley around to crack the whip. When the Kerry challenge needed to be kick-started, the Laune Rangers man was the man to do it. It’s becoming something like his trademark.
At three points down and with ten minutes on the clock
Crowley broke through the cover with a dip of the shoulder and a shot of acceleration to set up Paul Geaney for the Kingdom’s first point of the game.
That run and that point did much to settle Kerry and, while the penalty and Donnchadh Walsh’s dismissal were still to come, the feeling from then on in was that Kerry had this one covered.
Of course that’s not to say this was a flawless performance – the full-back line looked vulnerable at times, the starting half-forward line delivered just a single point from play – but these are relatively minor complaints.
No team with serious aspirations for Sam Maguire emerges from the box fully formed. It’s a much more gradual thing and it’s that way by design. It’s about building and peaking for different points of the year – Munster final, All Ireland semi-final and final.
All we can do now is look for little hints and clues. We can look at Anthony Maher’s performance and gauge his determination to make that starting berth his own as a matter of course once again.
The Duagh man’s performance was one of poise and precision. We talk too much about Maher’s value to the team in a defensive capacity and, yeah, he does do that, but his ability to pull the strings isn’t commented upon nearly enough.
Think back to that pass he gave for James O’Donoghue’s first point from play. It was slide-rule and by no means an isolated incident. Maher took hold of the game from the centre of the park for a spell there in the first half, greatly halting Clare’s momentum.
O’Donoghue, naturally enough, was the star of the show. The Legion man gave possibly his best performance in championship football since his stellar 2014 campaign, which saw him crowned footballer of the year.
He looked back to his very best. You could see the confidence surge back into him with every score. By the end he was absolutely tormenting the Clare defence. O’Donoghue would charge straight at them and they’d back and back and back away and then, when they engaged, O’Donoghue would simply glide out of their way.
Vintage stuff. Stuff to strike the fear of God into defenders’ hearts the length and breadth of the land. Whatever else they might have, the Kingdom now have two of the most lethal finishers in the game in the full-forward line.
What Clare wouldn’t have given for one or the other. For all their endeavour and effort they simply lacked the wherewithal to truly punish Kerry when they got the chance.
It’s fair enough to point to Jamie Malone’s second half effort which cannoned back off the crossbar as evidence for how this could have been a much closer affair, but football is much less about the spectacular – and that goal would have been spectacular – and much more so about the mundane.
What Clare needed to do was to produce the routine chances and take them more routinely. In Keelan Sexton and David Tubridy they had finishers on their game, but outside of the opening ten minutes neither man saw a huge amount of ball (credit to the Kerry management team for re-jigging the defence and curbing them).
At times they were too ponderous and lateral and, maybe, their biggest problem was that they didn’t truly believe they could beat Kerry. They were far too afraid of giving the ball away to create the chances to win.
Fortune favours the bold. Kerry were bold. Clare were not nearly enough and that’s probably what the Clare fans knew deep down before the ball was thrown in at all.
They’ve also seen this movie one time too many.
O’Donoghue looked back to his very best. You could see the confidence surge back into him with every score