Crokes defend their crown in hearty battle
DR CROKES posted back to back county titles after a thrilling encounter with South Kerry in this high quality Kerry SFC Final played before a large crowd.
The win for the reigning All-Ireland club champions meant that Dr Crokes now are unbeaten in 15 championship games including Munster and All-Ireland and, despite being in trouble at fullback line and midfield, their freescoring forwards came up trumps once again.
Crokes selector Harry O’Neill said, ‘That was tough and we knew that was going to be the case against South Kerry. They have a proud tradition of football down there and when they get to finals and it’s been there for us we haven’t been able to beat them.
‘We got a good start to that game, went 7-3 up and then we conceded a stupid goal, which brought them back into it. And when you give a team like South Kerry any sort of energy at all they will come at you and they pushed right up on us. But our lads thankfully showed tremendous character at the end of the game to dig it out especially after Johnny [Buckley] got the yellow and the black. To finish it out with 14 was fantastic.
‘You had one inside line with three wides and we got the ball up the field and Jordie Kiely popped one over the bar and we got another couple of scores out of it. We knew coming in today that we had to take all our chances. Seventeen scores is still a good haul any day but they had two fantastic saves in the first half, which might have given us a bit more daylight.’
Inspirational at midfield, Bryan Sheehan and Brendan O’Sullivan nearly hauled South Kerry back into the contest, with a Sheehan point from play levelling scores at 0-13 to 1-10 on 50 minutes.
But Crokes added three points from Daithí Casey (right), Jordan Kiely and Kieran O’Leary and even though Sheehan and Hussey closed the gap to the minimum in injury time, O’Leary kicked the insurance point. The crowd had barely recovered from the shock of Colm Cooper not lining out for Dr Crokes when South Kerry served notice of their intentions from the throw-in when Paul O’Donoghue played a quick ball inside the defence to O’Sullivan. He was one-on-one with Crokes’ keeper Shane Murphy, who made a superb save turning the ball behind for a 45 which Bryan Sheehan converted. Crokes soon settled with their swift passing and quick movement hurting the South Kerry defence and Kieran O’Leary had them in front by the 9th minute with two beauties from Kieran O’Leary.
Crokes were winning the battle around the middle and two quick points from Daithi Casey and Tony Brosnan left them 0-5 to 0-3 ahead after the opening quarter.
Crokes were kicking points for fun with Casey and Gavin White extending their lead to four points when South Kerry sub Ian Galvin buried the ball in the Crokes net. However, Crokes continued to attack in waves with points from Michael Burns, Tony Brosnan and the influential Daithi Casey, to retire 0-11 to 1-6 in front.
South Kerry started the second half well but Crokes sprang Colm Cooper (hamstring) and Jordan Kiely off the bench and despite losing Johnny Buckley to a red (a yellow and black) they defended well and South Kerry helped them with some wayward shooting.