The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Title relinquished as Kerry crushed by dominant Dublin
NATIONAL League champions Kerry were relieved of their title last Sunday through a combination of their third successive defeat and results elsewhere, but one sensed the handing back of the silverware - in a metaphorical sense - was the least of manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s concerns approaching tea-time in Croke Park. This was Kerry’s biggest margin of defeat in quite come time, and was Dublin’s largest winning margin by a distance in this Division One campaign - it was, in the manager’s own word, chastening. It was all that and more: it was the most instructive and harshest of lessons for Kerry’s emerging youth (indeed, for all players) that Kerry are quite a way behind Dublin in all the vital metrics and it will take some Herculean effort and plenty more stars to align if that chasm is to be bridged between here and September.
Whatever about the defeats to Galway and Monaghan, Kerry would have viewed this game as an ideal one to measure their early season progress against, and while they certainly got a reading, it won’t have been the one they wanted. Sure, privately the Kerry management can’t really have expected a very callow team to go to Croke Park last Sunday and beat a team that has effortlessly carried last year’s Championship winning form into this spring. But they would have wanted the “performance” that selector Mikey Sheehy called for last week and expected the team to deliver. They didn’t and the result was a 12-point drubbing in a match that petered to an inevitable conclusion from the moment Ciaran Kilkenny bundled in Dublin’s second goal in the 41st minute. That’s over half an hour of football in which it never looked likely that Kerry could or would rescue this game.
If there are mitigating circumstances, one would certainly point to the loss of midfield Barry O’Sullivan (34th minute black card) and forwards Sean O’Shea and Paul Geaney (both injured just before half time) that robbed Kerry of their attacking spine, but given Dublin’s ruthless efficiency and structure and game smarts in that second half, one wonders if Sheehy and fellow selector Maurice Fitzgerald in their pomp could have rescued Kerry in that second half.
That Kerry only trailed by three points at half time, 1-8 to 0-8, was encouraging for the League champions. More so when one factored in Geaney hitting the butt of a Dublin post and O’Shea creating, but wasting, a clear goal chance with only a Dublin defender on the goal-line. Alas, it was familiar failing at the other end that had afforded Dublin’s the first half’s only goal - a quintessential Dublin counter-attack that ended with Niall Scully palming the ball into the Kerry goal to put the hosts ahead for the first time after 20 minutes,
1-5 to 0-6.
It had started so well for Kerry with all three of inside forwards - David Clifford, Kevin McCarthy and Geaney - scoring from play inside the first five minutes, but a couple of well taken Kilkenny points kept Dublin close. Dublin’s goal threat was evident throughout, and the first chance came in the 15th minute when Dean Rock’s deft chip over Shane Murphy trailed just wide of the Kerry goal.
Clifford and Rock (free) swapped points, before Geaney saw his close-range shot come back off the post with Kevin McCarthy making it 0-6 to 0-4 from the rebound after 17 minutes.
Three minutes later Dublin were ahead after Scully was at the end of a full-pitch movement to palm Shane Carthy’s pass to the Kerry net, and Dublin wouldn’t be behind again in the game
The game got cranky towards the end of the half with some off the ball wrestling breaking out and Dublin defender John Small paid the price with a black card dismissal for grappling O’Shea to the ground on the cusp of half-time. Minutes before that O’Sullivan had walked on a black card for pulling down Brian Fenton, as the 24,026 crowd warmed to the acrimony on a crisp, cool Dublin afternoon.
Early points from Paddy Andrews and Paddy Small nudged Dublin four ahead within three minutes of the restart and when Kilkenny trickled the ball over the goal-line after an initial save from Murphy, it was a simply matter of how much Dublin could win by. With Geaney and O’Shea not coming back out for the second half it was left to
Clifford to lead the attack, and while he enjoyed a decent return to Croke Park in the first half, he, and the rest of the Kerry forwards, became more marginalised in the second.
Colm Basquel scored a point, Rock’s shot on goal hit the post, Scully and Andrews pointed again. When Micheal Burns kicked Kerry’s ninth point in the 54th minute it had been 29 minutes since their previous score, a fisted Burns point in the 25th minute
Dublin led 2-14 to 0-9 at that stage, and with Galway already qualified for the League Final Dublin now had one foot in it also. They’re not quite there yet but it’s a foregone thing that they will contest their sixth consecutive League Final on April 1. Kerry, meanwhile, tumbled down to sixth place in the table and need a point from their last two games to ensure Division One football next year. The expectation is that they’ll do the necessary and the quicker they move on from this train wreck the better.