Half seals famous five
last year and he is a resilient young man.
When the final whistle went my eyes went straight for him. He sank to his knees and looked to the sky. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t pull at the heart strings. There was a proud woman looking down on him.
Peter Keane worked his magic at the break and they reacted immediately. They still struggled at midfield, but a notable difference was the intensity of their play increased all over the field.
Their backs got closer to Galway’s danger men Matthew Cooley and Eoghan Tinney. I must say I was impressed with Owen Fitzgerald at corner-back. What he lacks in size he certainly makes up for with tenacity and really upped his game in the second half.
Dan Murphy from Rathmore also grew into the game and his fellow club man Darragh Rahilly was immense all day long. Up front Killian Falvey and Paul Walsh started to cause Galway serious problems and the introduction of Ruaidhrí Ó Beaglaoich was inspired. Kerry always had the fire power to do damage but the problem was the supply was limited due to their issues around the middle.
When they needed a leader their captain obliged, however. Again I’ve had the pleasure of working with Paul O’Shea at development squad level and it didn’t surprise me to see him flourish on the biggest stage.
He worked tirelessly for the team all day.
He has a lazy languid style of playing football, but he is far from both. He displayed his huge potential with two sweetly struck placed balls into the Hill in the first half as well as some beautiful long range kick passes throughout the contest.
And in the final quarter he really grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck. It was no coincidence that with the Kilcummin man to the fore Kerry outscored Galway five points to one from the 59th minute.
It’s a credit to this group of players and the management that even though they lived off limited primary possession they still managed to kick 21 points, 17 of which were from play.
They backed themselves like they have done all year and knew that they had the match winners up front if it came down to a shoot out which it did.
At the back they had some stellar performances also. As well as the aforementioned Fitzgerald I thought both Conor Flannery and Colm Moriarty acquitted themselves quite well while I was delighted for David Mangan from Laune Rangers.
David worked incredibly hard last year to get fit after being out for a long period due to a back injury.
Lifting the Tom Markham Cup would have been a special moment for him and his family.
So history is made and the five in-a-row is in the bag. Time will tell as to what all this success at minor level will do for Kerry football. There is no doubt the raw material is there to be harnessed. The question is now who does the harnessing?
Peter Keane’s name has to be in the conversation when it comes to assembling a new Kerry senior management. Whether that is for the top job itself or as part of a new fresh set up remains to be seen. His CV speaks for itself.
For now though we need to applaud what the young men of 14,15,16,17 and now 18 have done. It’s an outstanding achievement that will stand the test of time. We need them to come through though.
The green and gold production line looks like the only hope of stopping the blue machine that is Dublin.
It might seem a pretty simple and obvious point to make, but that doesn’t make it any less true – when you get your chances you’ve just got to take them. You’ve got to take the very most you can out of a given situation and in this final Galway didn’t do that and paid a heavy price for it.
They had a good four chances for goals and took just one. Now obviously a certain amount of credit for that must go to Marc Kelliher in the Kerry number 1 shirt – he was outstanding – but by the same token that’s a poor return for the Tribesmen.
Their overall rate of return on chances created was just 50%, which compares rather poorly with Kerry’s 62% return. The really disappointing thing from Galway’s point of view is that most of their missed chances came during a first half when they were dominant around the middle third – they won half of Kerry’s sixteen restarts and claimed ten from thirteen of their own. Galway created twenty chances and took just ten.
Kerry’s rate of return in both halves was a consistent 62%. The Kingdom’s trouble in the game was never up front. Their biggest issue was simply getting their hands on the ball.
Having struggled in the first half to claim enough possession to remain competitive – they lost
four of their own restarts in a five minute spell in the lead up to Tony Gill’s goal – they were far superior in the second half.
They went from a 50% rate of retention in the first half to a 78% rate in the second half. A lot of credit is due to midfield duo Paul O’Shea and Darragh Rahilly. They were in powerful form, Rahilly more so in the first half when Kerry were under pressure and O’Shea in the second half. By the end of the game the duo had claimed 17 kick-outs between them. That’s pretty remarkable, especially when you consider that Kerry won 23 kick-outs in the match (41%).
The swing at midfield meant that Kerry went from creating 13 chances in the first half to 21 in the second. That was the winning and the losing of the game in a major way.
The free count for the second half was also telling. Galway were under considerable pressure and fouled three times more often than Kerry did – 15 times to Kerry’s 5. It’s interesting to note that Kerry’s discipline improved considerably in the second half. In the first they gave away 9 frees, probably because they were under greater pressure. That said Kerry’s intensity and concentration was obviously better in the second half.
The green and gold production line looks like the only hope of stopping the blue machine that is Dublin