No luck needed as Kerry’s 13 stand brave to beat Mayo

NFL DIVISION 1, RD 2 Mayo 2-9 Kerry 1-15

GIVEN that ten of Kerry’s starting team had no involvement in last August’s All-Ireland semi-final replay loss to Mayo, revenge can hardly have been the prime motivation for this rematch last Saturday evening, but the visiting team certainly played like a team with a score to settle and a point to prove. More than that, though, Kerry played with a controlled aggression and maturity beyond the team’s average age that not only saw them take a valuable two League points on the road, but also knocked another invaluable 70 or so minutes into a group of young players that will either thrive or die in such circumstances.

Reduced to 13 players with still over 20 minutes to play, Kerry’s chances of avenging last summer’s Championship loss looked unlikely, even though they led by four points, 1-14 to 2-7, when Gavin Crowley was dismissed on a black/yellow combination two minutes after Ronan Shanahan was sent off for a double booking.

That Mayo could only translate their two-man advantage into two more points in those last 20 minutes will be a source of vexation for manager Stephen Rochford and his players, but that shouldn’t detract from some heroic defending and counter-attacking play and all round endeavour in the face of adversity from a young Kerry team that took another small but significant step in their development.

On the face of it, the concession of two first half goals – adding to the three coughed up against Donegal the previous weekend

– could be seen as troublesome, but while Diarmuid O’Connor’s first was simply created by Aidan O’Shea’s brute strength in winning a throw-in ball and setting up the Ballintubber man for a low shot beyond Shane Murphy, O’Connor’s second came via the penalty spot after Neil Douglas went over in the square under minimal contact from

Brian Beaglaoich.

Certainly the concession of those types of scores will have to be addressed sooner rather than later, but in Castlebar those two scores kept Mayo well in the game at half time, 2-3 to 0-10, despite Kerry being the dominant team in that first period. Quite how Kerry led by just a point having largely played the first half on their terms would have confounded both teams at the interval, but a missed Seán O’Shea penalty – well saved by David Clarke – and the loss through injury of David Clifford to a hamstring injury in the 18th minute would have gone some way to explaining it.

O’Shea’s penalty miss came in the 25th minute after Paul Geaney was pulled back in the act of shooting on goal (Clarke saved that effort too) at which stage Kerry led 0-8 1o 1-2. Mayo’s first goal had come 10 minutes earlier via O’Connor’s clinical finish, a score that hauled the hosts back to parity on the scoreboard, 1-2 to 0-5, after points from Micheál Burns, Barry John Keane, O’Shea, Barry O’Sullivan and Geaney had kept Kerry in front from the second minute.

Clifford’s first senior point form play duly arrived moments after the Mayo goal, but a minute later the IT Tralee student had succumbed to a hamstring injury. Mayo had their own issues when they lost full back and sometime Clifford marker, Ger Cafferky, to injury in the 24th minute.

Seán O’Shea, though central to much of what Kerry did all throughout, endured a tough few minutes when the resultant ‘45 from the penalty miss was kicked wide and then he pushed a 35-metre free off target also.

Though Burns and Keane followed up with a point apiece, those Kerry misses looked costly when Douglas won the penalty that O’Connor convert- ed and Jason Doherty’s free made it 2-3 to

0-10 at the interval.

A mistake from Shane Murphy gifted Doherty the equalising free a minute into the second half but then excellent Kerry pressure forced Aidan O’Shea to turn over the ball and Keane played in Crowley who placed a great shot beyond Clarke to restore a threepoint lead for the Kingdom.

Points from Seán O’Shea (‘45’), Geaney, Murphy and Brendan O’Sullivan kept Kerry’s tally rising, but the first moment of concern came when Shanahan, already on a yellow and a warning, was dismissed for a second yellow for a needless incident with Cillian O’Connor.

Mayo sent on Colm Boyle and Andy Moran, but Mayo could never find the means to penetrate a stout Kerry rearguard, even when Crowley joined Shanahan in the stand when a black card on top of an earlier yellow combined to make red.

Cillian O’Connor converted a free to make it 2-8 to 1-14, but between himself and Doherty they missed four frees that really ought to have been converted. All the while the Kerry defence rejected any and all Mayo’s increasingly desperate forays through the middle, with Shane Enright, Jason Foley and especially Paul Murphy defiant in all they did.

Ó Beaglaoich’s black card dismissal in the 65th minute – when Kerry led 1-15 to 2-8 – was another cause for concern, but Cormac Coffey filled in manfully and Kerry held out for the remaining nine minutes to mine a modicum of revenge for last August’s Croke Park defeat, and deliver the county’s first back-to-back wins at the start of a League campaign for the first time since 2009.

MAYO: D Clarke; B Harrison, G Cafferkey, E O’Donoghue; S Nally, S Coen, P Durcan; J Gibbons, B Moran (0-1); K McLoughlin, A O’Shea, D O’Connor (2-1, 1-0 pen); N Douglas, E Regan (0-1, 1f, J Doherty (0-3f). Subs: C Crowe for Cafferkey (23, inj); C O’Connor (0-2f) for Regan (44, inj); A Moran (0-1f) for Douglas (52); C Boyle for McNally (52), F Boland for B Moran (62), C Loftus for

Doherty (73).

KERRY: Shane Murphy; Brian O Beaglaoich, Jason Foley, Shane Enright; Paul Murphy (01), Gavin Crowley (1-0), Ronan Shanahan; Jack Barry, Barry O’Sullivan (0-1); Micheal Burns (0-2), Sean O’Shea (0-3, 1 45), Stephen O’Brien; David Clifford (0-1), Paul Geaney (0-3), Barry John Keane (0-3). Subs: Jack Savage for Clifford (17, inj)); Brendan O’Sullivan (0-1) for O’Brien (44); Andrew Barry for Keane (52), Matthew Flaherty for O’Shea (54), Eanna O Conchuir for Burns (58); Cormac Coffey for O Beaglaoich (black card, 65).

REFEREE: Derek O’Mahoney (Tipperary)