Kerry 0-16 Cork 1-09:THE MORE things change, the more they stay the same. A decade which began with the stirring of a northern revolution and mutterings from the south about 'puke football' ended yesterday with Kerry once again in the ascendant, having done what they have always done. They adapted to football's new style and then outlasted their rivals.
Kerry! In the end we all bow to their eminence. They began the year looking as if the arrival of championship football had caught them by surprise. They finished yesterday by outplaying a Cork side who had looked as if they were growing inexorably toward greatness. Poor Cork. Yesterday they hit the pitch carrying that great weight which we in the GAA call the burden of favouritism.
Whatever they felt about that, they opened up in the first 10 minutes exactly as we might have expected them to. They looked like men with a point to prove.
When Colm O’Neill got in behind the Kerry defence after 10 minutes and beat Diarmuid Murphy at his near post the sceptics in the Kerry side of the congregation rubbed their chins and nodded. Kerry full back Tommy Griffin had been skinned. The goalie hadn’t wrapped himself in glory. Cork would push on surely.
Instead Kerry just took the goal as an affront to their standing. Jack O’Connor had his tactics just right. Colm Cooper did what he usually does when he meets Anthony Lynch in Croke Park, tortured him. Declan O’Sullivan on Kieran O’Connor was a mismatch. Tadhg Kennelly at centre forward kept Graham Canty so busy in his own kitchen that he never got to venture upfield. Tommy Walsh’s performance on Michael Shields was a bonus which brought points just about every time Kerry needed them.
Kerry pressed on and by half-time had turned the five-point deficit into a two-point advantage. The concession of the goal had scarcely winded them. Teams like that are scary to play against.
By the time the second half was underway Cork had hurler Eoin Cadogan in one corner of the full-back line, full back Shields in the other corner and John Miskella had moved from wing back to full back. Mixing and mending on the run is a dangerous process.
Kerry started the second half with a free which Colm Cooper converted as part of his flawless day of free-taking and a point from Darren O’Sullivan at the end of a mesmerising solo run.
For O’Sullivan it was a special day. He played his first All-Ireland final a few years back as a late sub on a bad day against Tyrone. This year Kerry chose him to be the county captain and tomorrow night he will carry the cup home to picturesque Glenbeigh. He confessed afterwards the final whistle had brought a wave of emotion which he hadn’t expected.
“ I just didn’t know what to do. I was overcome. To be captain of this great team and to get to lead them out in Croke Park and then to lift the cup. It’s a time I will never forget.”
And this was an All-Ireland win the people of Kerry will never forget. Much of the decade was spent fending off the irritation of the northern dominance and there are those who say Kerry never beat Tyrone in their three championship meetings.
If there has to be a team of the decade however, the laurel has to go to the team which outlasted and outperformed all others. The journey which Kerry completed yesterday was remarkable if viewed just as the story of one season. If you go back, however, to the jaded and demoralised Kerry side which Jack O’Connor took over at the start of the 2004 season, their story is wondrous. Six finals in a row. Four wins.
For O’Connor, after a two -season hiatus during which Pat O’Shea took the team, yesterday was a personal triumph. Despite an astonishing record of managing teams to success at club level, schools’ level and all age grades of intercounty football, there has been a persistent Greek chorus of doubters who question what the Dromid man actually brings to the table. O’Connor doesn’t have to explain what he brings to the table. What he brings home is the bacon.
This year he knew his side hadn’t the legs left to start the summer at spring pace and keep that going till September. So they limped out of Munster and shambled through the qualifiers before reassuring themselves by devouring the startled earwigs of Dublin in the All-Ireland quarter-final. After that it was business as usual. When it comes to one-off big games, O’Connor is virtually peerless tactically.
Yesterday Pearse O’Neill, the Cork centre forward, entered the game as virtually a certainty to win an All Star. He was erased as a presence in the game though by Mike McCarthy and his story was replicated in several key areas.
“We were in trouble earlier in the summer,” said O’Connor “and written off. We get our our energy from enjoying each other’s company and working hard.”
Enjoying each other’s company? They do that and enjoy the company of Sam until Christmas. Then thoughts will turn to the idea of making a seventh final in a row.
Who would bet against them?