Championship

Kerry win away against Longford - 2009 Championship Qualifier

July 14th, 2009
by Weeshie Fogarty

 Kerry 1-12  Longford 0-11

As I set out on the journey back to the Kingdom last Saturday following Kerrys win over the home side Longford I must admit at feeling confused and bewildered at the performance I had just witnessed from the team in a continuous down pour of rain. People have remarked that the conditions in Pierce Park militated against any kind of good football however this dose not hold up as it was as good for the goose as the gander and in that second half Longford overcame the conditions with great assurance. And lets not forget that Kerry gave one of their finest ever performance in recent years when they defeated Galway in that magnificent football classic in the championship in Croke Park last year. And conditions during that epic were as bad I had ever witnessed. So we can not in any way blame the conditions as some "experts" have suggested.

This was a real Jekyll and Hyde performance by Kerry. For the first twenty five minutes they simply destroyed the home side and as expected the return of Kieran Donnaghy saw Colm Cooper and Tommy Walsh return to near their best form. Donnaghy was superb and given a constant supply of ball he fielded high and low with great assurance and was involved in some way in most of the early Kerry scores which saw them race ahead 1-10 to 0-4 at half time. The work rate of all players was top class. They looked re-invigorated, fresh and well organized and while one could understand a little drop in their intensity due to this big lead the transformation in that second half will cause great anxiety for the men on the side line. However all was not well in that first hale as Kery raced into the huge lead. In fact two incidents in that half in my opinion probably decided the result at the final whistle. First was the Kerry goal and any fair minded critic would have to admit that it was very fortunate to say the least. A harmless looking attempt from Killian young was blocked down by a Longford defender was not cleared by his defense, Tommy Walsh was first to react to the breaking ball and showing great composer the O Rahillys man picked his spot low to the keepers left and in the twinkle of an eye the ball was nestling in the corner of Damien Sheridan's net. 

As half time drew near the wheels began to come off the Kerry wagon and we then had the second incident which proved so crucial at the end. Longford captain Paul Barden found himself face to face with Diarmuid Murphy and from point blank range the towering Dingle custodian saved brilliantly as a goal looked certain. Barden was fast to regain possession from the re-bound and shot for goal once again. However to Murphy's eternal credit he had regained his feet superbly and in the space of seconds he once again saved superbly, diverting the ball for a fruitless forty five His second save for me was superior to the first. I have heard some mutterings of Murphy losing his edge lately; he certainly answered his critics in no uncertain fashion. That man has gives his county wonderful service. Longford needed a goal if they were to cause a major up set; it's as simple as that.

So what happened in that second half when Kerry scored just two points? And to be brutally honest I really still don't know. Last week in this column and in reference to the two Cork matches I posed the following question in the run up to the Longford game.  "The burning question now is, were the two Cork games a sigh of Kerry in decline or are there some other underlying problems. E.G. lack of fitness or are some of the players just mentally drained from their magnificent achievements in recent years". Those questions for me amd I would guess also for Jack o Connor and his side line men still remain to be answered with any degree of fairness and accuracy.  When did we last see two Kerry midfielders substituted in a championship game? Even before Kieran Donnaghy and Declan o Sullivan went off injured the team had lost its shape and were playing as individuals and rarely looked like getting more that these two points. Thomas and Mark o Shea, Tommy Walsh together with substitutes Micheal Quirke did all they could to stem the blue tide and that tide was winning all breaking balls and were re acting faster to all sections of play during that great fight back. In a nut shell Longford looked far hungrier and as the fellow said, "hunger is the great sauce.

Lets get one thing straight however,  and that is win, lose or draw, all of this is what makes Kerry football the great success story it has been. The post mortems being conducted all over the county and beyond, the bar stool discussions, the radio phone inns, the watchers at the Fitzgerald Stadium training sessions whom I find are the most knowledge of all and the ordinary down to earth honest supporter, spending hard earned money many of whom I met in that continuous down pour before during and after the game in Longford. But the bottom line is, the boys are still in the race for the championship. It may not be looking good at this stage but you write off Kerry at your peril. 

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