The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Kilmoyley and Ballyduff go again in final replay
Saturday, September 24 Austin Stack Park, 5pm
THE question we must ask ourselves is this: do we feel any differently now than we did at around 5pm on Sunday, September 11.
Our initial gut take was that Ballyduff had more to be happy about than Kilmoyley. Kilmoyley were almost certainly the better side in the game. That it hadn’t been enough to secure victory against an older Ballyduff side has to be of huge concern to them.
On so many of the important metrics they’d outperformed their rivals. Ballyduff’s scoring return was just 55%, while Kilmoyley’s stood at 69%. Kilmoyley are, you suspect, unlikely to improve much on that. Ballyduff on the other hand have much greater scope for improvement.
Padraig Boyle – who showed nerves of steel to secure a late equaliser – should be in better condition to compete this weekend than he was two weeks ago, he was ill in the build up to that game.
The reason we tipped Ballyduff for that game, the reason why they have a replay to look forward to at all, remains unchanged – there are goals in that Ballyduff full-forward line and there simply aren’t any in Kilmoyley’s full-forward line.
Not as it’s presently constituted at any rate. Manager Fergie O’Loughlin is as aware as anybody of the need to score goals, admitting after the drawn match the difficulty of winning any game without them.
We could be wrong, but we strongly suspect that without a goal Kilmoyley won’t have enough about them to win this final. What the Kilmoyley braintrust decides to do about that will be absolutely critical here.
Adrian Royle remains an aerial threat, but in Paud Costello Ballyduff do seem to have an answer for him. Royle was the only Kilmoyley player in the full-forward line to score from play last time out. That has to change. He needs support.
One possible change O’Loughlin could make would be to push Shane Brick further forward in support of Royle. Brick had a decent enough game the first day, but his scoring threat was relatively limited. Closer to goal might he prosper more?
It would put more pressure on Daniel Collins to run the show on the half-forward line, but he was one of the game’s stand-out performers in the drawn match as it is and last year’s final showed him to be a man for the big day.
O’Loughlin will hope for more from young Jordan Brick too. He was one of the key reasons why Kilmoyley defeated St Brendans in a hard-fought semi-final in August, but for whatever reason he never got into the game two weeks ago (to be fair David O’Grady might have had something to do with it).
Outside of improving their scoring return it’s not at all clear what more Ballyduff can do or have to do in order to win on the weekend. They’re not going to match Kilmoyley for pace and energy around pitch.
Trying to do so would likely be a recipe for disaster. Ballyduff need to play to their strengths and that’s not that. Ballyduff are better served by keeping their shape as much as possible and letting the ball do their work for them.
They’ve got ball winners all over the pitch. Daniel O’Carroll and Mikey Boyle were both really strong in the drawn game under the puck-outs, while as we’ve noted there’s more to come from Padraig Boyle and, Ballyduff would hope, Gary O’Brien.
It would be a huge surprise if Kilmoyley managed to shut them out for a goal, but perhaps that’s what Kilmoyley will try to do. They have at least as good a chance – if not better – of keeping Ballyduff to points as scoring a goal themselves.
Tom Murnane, as ever, was on the top of his game in the sweeper role in the drawn game. It’s possible that Ballyduff will decide to push up on him and attempt to go fifteen on fifteen, but there are inherent dangers in that – the drawn game showed how costly a stray goal can be.
This one is really shaping up to be another intriguing contest. We can sit here and speculate on this and that, but the reality is finals can take on a life of their own. Sunday’s All Ireland football final proved as much, very little of what was discussed beforehand came to pass.
Kilmoyley remain the bookies favourites, but to our mind Ballyduff have a clearer path to victory than Kilmoyley do and for that reason we’ll stick with them. Without goals Kilmoyley aren’t going to pull away from Ballyduff and a Ballyduff side in with a sniff is a very dangerous animal indeed.
Verdict: Ballyduff
To our mind Ballyduff have a clearer path to victory than Kilmoyley and for that reason we’ll stick with them