The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Guile and grit gets Crokes back to All-Ireland Club final on St Patrick’s Day
Goals from O’Shea and Kiely as O’Leary points the way
ALL-IRELAND CLUB SFC SEMI-FINAL
IF we were to make one criticism of Dr Crokes smooth passage to next month’s All-Ireland Club final it would be that they might have broke too soon. Of course, it’s not a criticism at all, and it certainly won’t be if they can finish the job on St Patrick’s Day and emulate the boys of ’92. After three ill-fated All-Ireland semi-final attempts in the last five years the Kerry champions are finally back in Croke Park on March 17 with just one question to answer: can they repeat last Sunday’s performance that utterly undid for Corofin and, if so, will it be good enough to beat Slaughtneil and bring the Andy Merrigan Cup back to Killarney for the first time in 25 years?
Few can say they saw a ninepoint Crokes win coming. We doubt if they even dared dream of such a margin of victory in Lewis Road last week. How could they: they were playing a team that were All-Ireland champions just two years ago and who came to this fixture with unquestionable pedigree as a football team. Of course, so too were Dr Crokes, and once the Kerry champions got their game going right from the first whistle they’ve looked as comfortable as they ever have in an All-Ireland semi-final.
It took Brian Looney 16 seconds to have the ball traversing the Corofin crossbar and not even a minute had elapsed before Kieran O’Leary slipped Crokes into a two-point lead. As throwing down the gauntlet exercises go, it was as emphatic a message to send out as possible. By the fourth minute O’Leary had his second and Crokes’ third point, and had Colm Cooper managed to hold Daithi Casey’s sliderule pass on the edge of the small square and do what Gooch does best, this thing might have been baked before the tenth minute.
Crokes dominated the play for most of the first half, passing the ball patiently and purposefully, and probing for ways to unlock a Corofin defence that had now retreated and swelled in numbers as they tried desperately to curtail a Crokes attack purring with movement and menace. And yet, for all Crokes intricate play and searching passes and hard work further back they still only found themselves a point ahead after 25 minutes.
Corofin didn’t launch a meaningful foray in Crokes territory for the first five minutes and there was nine minutes elapsed when Ronan Steede kicked a first wide for the Galway club, and yet they engineered a little necklace of scores from Ian Burke, Michael Farragher and Jason Leonard (free) between the 10th and 16th minutes to trailed 0-5 to 0-3.
When Gary Sice pointed a 25th minute free to cut the gap to one point it seemed that somehow Corofin might get to the interval very much in contention - ahead even - after being largely dominated. But then the stroke of luck every team needs on occasions like this.
Colm Cooper lined up a tough kick for a point but his shot drew away from the posts and looked to be going wide. Kieran O’Leary kept it in play on the end-line and recycled to Gavin O’Shea. The centre-forward was most certainly trying to pop the ball over the bar from the 14-metre line but his under-cooked shot caught Bernard Power flat-footed and found the top corner of the goal, as much to O’Shea’s surprise as Power’s.
Two more O’Leary points in a brilliant display of economical forward play and Dr Crokes were much better value for their 1-7 to 0-5 half time lead.
Two converted frees early in the second half from Cooper and Casey pushed Crokes into a seven-point
lead, but Corofin - though they found the Crokes defence in tenacious form - still carried a threat that needed minding. Leonard’s point made it a six-point game before Sice sliced a shot across the Crokes goalmouth that was a reminder to all that the Connacht champions weren’t going down without a fight.
Dylan found another Corofin score, this one taking paint off the crossbar as it went over, and when Wall found the range again in the 43rd minute it was a far from comfortable four-point lead for Crokes.
Several times the Crokes defenders - and midfielder Ambrose O’Donovan - had to make brave and timely interventions to deny Corofin breaking through on Shane Murphy’s goal, but as Corofin pressed forward in search of a badly needed goal, Crokes counter-attacked with a match-winning goal. Fionn Fitzgerald won a free right back in his own corner but rather than stand on ceremony Cooper released Casey with quickly taken free. Casey’s 50-metre solo run brought him to the Corofin 21-metre line with just Ciaran McGrath between him and Power in goal. Casey drew McGrath to him, popped a pass across to Jordan Kiely, and with his first touch, 70 seconds after coming into the game, Kiely slipped the ball past Power. Game over.
Four minutes later Tony Brosnan scored a point with his first touch after being brought in, and as if to give Slaughtneil a little taste of their full range of scoring option, goalkeeper Shane Murphy floated over a long-range free to complete the scoring. DR CROKES: S Murphy (0-1f); J Payne, M Moloney, L Quinn; D O’Leary, G White, F Fitzgerald; A O’Donovan, A O’Sullivan; J Buckley, G O’Shea (1-0), B Looney (0-1); K O’Leary (0-5), D Casey (0-2f), C Cooper (0-1f). Subs: M Burns for Looney (41 mins); J Kiely (1-0) for O’Shea (48); T Brosnan (0-1) for Casey (53); S Doolan for K O’Leary (58); M Milner for Cooper (62). COROFIN: B Power; K Fitzgerald, L Silke, C Silke; K Molloy, C McGrath, C Cunningham; D Burke, R Steede; G Sice (0-2f), D Wall (0-2), J Leonard (0-2, 1f); I Burke (0-1), M Farragher (0-1), M Lundy. Subs: G Higgs for C Silke (35 mins); A Burke for Molloy (38); B O’Donovan for Cunningham (48); C Brady for Wall (50). REFEREE: Ciaran Branagan (Down) Dr Crokes 2-11 Corofin 0-8