We came to witness the greatest teams of rivals play again in the brilliant sunshine and left spellbound as ever by their sheer audacity and a match-winning kick which will soar as long into the ages. One of not many.
All that talk of Kerry needing to beat Dublin here, more than Dublin needed to beat Kerry, was superfluous when the game hung in the balance and it seemed only extra time — possibly even penalties — could resolve it. Little did we know.
Because when O’Shea stood before the 60m metre free which could put Kerry back in front with all five minutes of added-time elapsed, facing into the Hill 16 end and a stiff summer breeze too, if felt as it he was eyeing up the length of the Kingdom itself. Somehow the Kerry captain from Kenmare landed it as sweetly and smoothly as they come.
With that O’Shea sealed Kerry’s first championship win over Dublin in 13 years and a sort of direct reversal of when Dublin took Kerry down in the 2011 final thanks to the match-winning kick by Stephen Cluxton.
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Still one of the first things manager Jack O’Connor tells us in the immediate aftermath is that it will count for nothing unless Kerry beat Galway in the final on Sunday week. That is why O’Connor came back for a third coming, isn’t it?
“I don’t know lads. ‘tis tough going, ‘tis tough on the heart,” he says with beaming smile. “I’ll tell you that was tough going there near the end, the old ticker was going fairly fast. Dublin threw everything at us like the great team they aren … Every now and again, you’d say, ‘Jesus wouldn’t it be great to be inside in the middle of this, trading blows.’
[ Malachy Clerkin: Dublin’s biggest weakness an inability to see out close matchesOpens in new window ]
“Of course it’s significant, psychologically, but I keep going back to the thing that we have a final to play for and a final to try and win and … There’s going to be no fella being tapped on the back about beating Dublin if we can’t go the distance here now.”
Dublin certainly made sure this game went the distance, eating into Kerry’s six-point advantage from just after half-time, 1-9 to 0-6, with an amazing goal from Cormac Costello in the 45th minute, after David Moran spilled possession well inside his own half.
“Look, you give Dublin a turnover, possession, in the middle of the pitch, and you’re in trouble. But … I think the absolute key to it was the last 10 minutes, when Dublin were pressing our kick-outs, Shane Ryan got off all his kick-outs, I think that was hugely significant. If they’d turned over one of those kick-outs I think we were done.”
Not kickable
Before O’Shea’s match-winning kick, the free awarded after a foul on David Clifford, O’Connor was already resigned to extra-time.
“Personally, from the line, I didn’t think it was kickable, to be honest. Straight up I didn’t think the man could get the distance, because Seán O’Shea had emptied the tank, that was in the 76th minute. He had given a ferocious performance up to then … that has to be one of the best pressure kicks we’ve seen here, that I’ve seen in Croke Park, in a long, long time.
“Because in my head I was already thinking extra time, basically. We were discussing on the line who we might out back in. But that last kick, there are very few players in the country who could kick like that, go back to Maurice Fitzgerald, Bryan Sheehan, particularly with the last kick, and the amount he had given in the game.”
Clifford finished with 0-6, one free and one mark, O’Connor marvelling at his performance given his limited training: “He basically didn’t train the week after the Mayo game, it was some performance by him given the time he’s missed, because he missed some time as well before the Mayo game, with a calf strain. I’d say minimum he’s missed four weeks out of the last seven or eight, it’s a great sign of the man he can play the way he did.”
And only one more football Sunday to come.
