To the manor born

not to say that the other two who started for the first time were unimpressive, it’s just that the wing-forward seemed that much further along in his development.

To be fair to Shane Ryan in the Kerry goal, he did very little wrong. Kerry retained seventy five percent of his kick-outs. That aside, though, the Rathmore man had very little to do.

Tyrone didn’t test him really with a high ball, a get-to-knowyou teaser. A few shots did drop short (mostly from Niall Morgan placed balls) and Ryan dealt with those confidently enough, but really to know more about how he’s shaping up, he’ll need to be tested much more than he was by an incredibly disappointing Tyrone.

Diarmuid O’Connor, meanwhile, was incredibly assured for his age. A couple of years younger than Moynihan, he is more of a longer term prospect. There’s a good chance that after the league concludes he’ll make his way to being part of Jack O’Connor’s Under 20s.

Still against the Red Hand he more than justified his conclusion. Yes he made a couple of mistakes – a couple of passes went astray – but much like Moynihan’s willingness to take on those shots, O’Connor wasn’t shying away from it, he was trying to do things, trying to make an impact.

Physically speaking he was much further along in his development than most of us might have expected he might be. He still has a ways to go, but the Na Gaeil man certainly wasn’t blown out of it by a supremely well conditioned Tyrone side.

Probably the nature of the game suited the Kingdom’s debutants somewhat at least. It was physical, without being overly so, certainly it wasn’t as physical as the free count suggested.

At well over forty frees you’d expect the game to have been tetchy with at least an undercurrent of spite. That really wasn’t the game we saw at any rate – Tyrone picked up just one yellow card, Kerry three and nobody got close to committing a blackcard offence.

The old enmities between Kerry and Tyrone are, if not ceased entirely, certainly in abeyance. Perhaps that’s what Tyrone lacked most of all in the game. It felt like Harte’s men were simply going through the motions, resigned to their fate of another defeat in Fitzgerald Stadium long before the finish.

Tyrone played without much belief and without conviction. It took them an age to carry the ball from one end to the other, in contrast to a slicker and quicker Kerry counter-attack, and as a result struggled to break Kerry down.

Yes, the Kerry half-back line was well on top of its brief, and the three inside defenders (and Peter Crowley in particular) looked strong and sturdy, but it would probably premature to draw too many conclusions from that just yet given the poverty of Tyrone’s offensive threat.

Even taking that into account, Kerry had a job to do back there and they did it really well. That defensive solidity bred confidence throughout the team, it provided a platform for the younger players to do what they did down the other end.

The two points too will breed confidence and take a little bit of the pressure for results off. Peter Keane and his management team will be able to continue experimenting and probably experiment a little bit more.

It would be a surprise if O’Connor and Moynihan didn’t get more game time. It wouldn’t be a surprise either if another new face sneaked into the starting fifteen – perhaps Gavin O’Brien, who also made his debut in Fitzgerald Stadium?

We live in interesting and exciting times.

Moynihan was fearless. He took a pass from Paul Geaney, sized up his options, saw he was best placed and did the needful