Geaney on song as Kerry tune up in style
WE shake our heads at a scoreline like this one and mournfully declare that neither team learns anything from such a contest.
But that’s not true.
There is always some new bit of wisdom to be wrung even from mismatches – and especially in this age, when analysts crawl all over these inter-county games like ants.
Jack O’Connor won’t need the video clips to appreciate a couple of obvious stand-outs. He was reminded that against most teams, his players are too good to be contained.
He learned that Paul Geaney – that gnarly old greybeard – is still important. If the 2024 project is to find viable forward support for the Cliffords and Sean O’Shea, then Geaney’s performance here was a statement on behalf of the past. It won’t be ignored by the wily O’Connor, either.
The Kerry manager didn’t learn what he wouldn’t have expected to from a game like this, either. He simply doesn’t know how his team will be come Croke Park and a high-summer game against Dublin, Derry, Galway or Donegal.
They won’t be challenged in the round-robin series to any great extent, but they would have expected a fiercer test than this.
Instead, the game was done by half time, with Kerry leading by 13 points, 0-15 to 0-2.
In truth it was actually over long before then. When Tom O’Sullivan, playing on the half-back line, kicked his second point from play in the 16th minute, it put Kerry ahead, 0-8 to 0-2, and by then it was painfully obvious that Monaghan – their thin resources ransacked by injuries – were out of their depth.
It was the 33rd minute before David Clifford scored his first point from play, but he didn’t need the cape and the mask in Killarney; there was no need for superheroes.
Mortals were too much for Monaghan on this occasion.
That Clifford point, which put the score 0-14 to 0-2 in Kerry’s favour, was still his fourth of the day up to then.
The first three had come from frees, which gave some indication of the pressure that Monaghan were under, or rather their inability to cope with even the most routine application of pressure that modern teams try to exert as a baseline requirement.
Such was Kerry’s ease overall, that of their 24 points, Clifford and Sean O’Shea contributed just 0-9 of them, and 0-3 of that from play.
The spread of scorers will have cheered O’Connor, but it still seems significant that it was Geaney who starred besides the marquee names.
What that says about the manager’s search for options will become clearer come June and July.
Vinny Corey learned a painful lesson, too, one that he simply couldn’t counter. With the injury problems that have afflicted his group, there was no way they could compete as equals here.
Monaghan, at their best over the past decade and a half, have defied convention and expectation, with a core group of brilliant players propelling them into improbable positions. But when injuries hit, they suffer.
And their suffering here was extended.
It didn’t help that they were turned over so easily and so often in the first half. They just could not get out of their half, getting either turned over in contact or misplacing passes that were greedily pounced on by Kerry.
Conor McCarthy’s third-minute miss deprived them of the chance to at least make Kerry squirm for a while.
It must have made O’Connor’s blood chill, given Monaghan did what Cork and Clare had and found space in the heart of Kerry’s defence.
McCarthy took a fine pass from Stephen O’Hanlon and should have scored, but Shane Ryan, recalled to goal, made the block with the ball blasted straight at him.
Kerry ruled thereafter, Geaney starring, Paudie Clifford buzzing and their overall pace and movement bamboozling the visitors.
Monaghan had a chance of a goal through sub Andrew Woods two minutes after the restart, but he couldn’t palm into a gaping goal.
Soon enough the pressure was all concentrated around Rory Beggan’s goal, and he had to make decent saves from Joe O’Connor and Paudie Clifford to prevent the score subsiding into mortification.
An unanswered 1-2 for Monaghan between the 59th and 62d minutes were as good as it got. Gary Mohan got the goal, gathering Ryan’s palmed clearance and turning to fire the shot between the keeper’s legs.
As consolations go, it was pretty meagre.