Reactive Kerry must act now
The game’s first goal illustrated perfectly the difference between a proactive Dublin and a static and reactive Kerry team, writes Paul Brennan
AS painful as it will be – and as much as he might like to hit the erase button and move past it – Éamonn Fitzmaurice will have sat down Monday night (with a stiff drink perhaps?) and reviewed Sunday’s game against Dublin. Somewhere in these few days he will also get the statistical data from the game – the GPS readings, the tackle count, the possession stats, maybe even those heat charts they use on Sky Sports – but the Kerry management and players might do worse than simply watch the 30 or seconds leading up to the first Dublin goal.
We shouldn’t blame David Clifford too much for taking a short free that started the chain reaction, but if the Fossa teenager is to take on thing from that it’s that if you’re going to gamble a fairly scoreable free kick for something better then at least nail the delivery to your team mate. As it was, Clifford sold Seán O’Shea a fracture short with his pass, but thereafter it was a catastrophe in every possible way for Kerry. Dublin defender Jonny Cooper intercepted Clifford’s kick as if his life depended on it. At the second attempt to took possession of the ball, and with now three Kerry players around him he got it back to the supporting Cian O’Sullivan who transferred it back to Stephen Cluxton on the end-line. Under no pressure, Cluxton flipped it out to full back David Byrne who carried the ball from his 14-metre line to over the half-way line unchallenged.
It was here that Dublin’s clever running and game smarts kicked in. With Jack Barry tracking Byrne up the middle his marker, Brian Fenton, crossed over in from of Byrne and for a moment Barry checked his run and went with Fenton. Seeing more clear space in front of him Byrne ran on further with Barry doubling back to chase down the Dublin full back. As Byrne crossed inside the Kerry 45-metre line, there were six Kerry defenders and six Dublin players goal side of the ‘45. Dean Rock collected a short handpass from Byrne and almost immediately shovelled it on to none other than Fenton who broke through at pace. The Dublin midfielder easily broke a weak challenge by Jason Foley and with a left-handed handpass he split put a perfect pass inside Peter Crowley to Shane Carthy. Kerry goalkeeper Shane Murphy was off his line fast to force Carthy to turn back outside the Dr Crokes man did well to get a touch on Carthy’s shot to deflect it up and towards goal. At that precise moment Niall Scully is stationed between Ronan Shanahan and Brian Ó Beagloich, with the An Ghaeltacht man a little off the goal-line, but Scully is allowed to jump fairly much unchallenged and slap the ball over Ó Beaglaoich and into the goal.
Now, compare Jonny Cooper’s absolute commitment to win Clifford’s undercooked free kick, and Cian O’Sullivan’s instant support, with Foley’s wishy-washy attempt to tackle Fenton and Shanahan and Ó Beaglaoich’s passivity around Scully. Look again at Fenton’s clever little decoy run to take Jack Barry away from David Byrne and the absence of any Kerry player to fill that void. That was the game in microcosm - Dublin being proactive in what they were doing and Kerry reacting (badly) to what the Dubs were doing.
Yes, it’s one small example in a long game but it illustrates how flat-footed and switched off to the dangers around them Kerry were on Sunday. And there were similar examples the previous week against Galway.
Fitzmaurice wasn’t wrong when he described the experience as “chastening” but as for taking it on the chin now and moving on
pretty quickly, he might want to pause and reflect somewhat on what exactly his players did and didn’t too.
“I think early in the second half Dublin really got after us. They punished our mistakes. For whatever reason then we seemed to go into our shell a bit, which was disappointing,” the Kerry manager said. “But look they’re an outstanding team and we can see where we’re at, we can see where they’re at and there’s a gap there that has to be bridged. We made a couple of costly errors that were really punished and they got life and energy and they just kept going better and better. “I think Sean O’Shea and Paul Geaney, certainly losing them at half-time was a factor. We lost a bit of impetus and direction up front but we just have to learn from it. We just have to move on and it was a pretty chastening experience for all of us.”
Move on, yes, but every day is a school day so something must be learned too.