Tyrone 1-15 Kerry 2-9
Yet again, Kerry brought out the best in Tyrone. The management of Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher may have had an unpromising start to this relationship when shipping six goals in a league play-off in Killarney but in the meantime, they have won all of the contests from the 2021 All-Ireland semi-final en route to Sam Maguire and on to league matches both this year and last.
This was a loaded fixture. The All-Ireland champions have been struggling to rediscover their rhythms whereas the home team were staring at relegation with just two points from their opening four matches.
The punters didn’t exactly come out in force, as is often the case when a team is bottom of the table and there was a meagre enough attendance in Healy Park and even that was boosted by a decent Kerry representation.
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If the competing motivations suggested Tyrone might be bringing more urgency to the table, that wasn’t immediately apparent and Seán O’Shea was in for a goal within little more than a minute, riding his luck a little as a defensive block came back nicely for him.
By the 13th minute, David Clifford had launched a stratospheric point from the right wing, Tom O’Sullivan had raided for a trademark score, curled over on a counter-attack and O’Shea added a free. Darragh Canavan’s score was the sole response.
Kerry were looking more purposeful and dominating possession when the match twisted against them. Goalkeeper Shane Ryan made a couple of top-class, one-on-one saves during the match from Conn Kilpatrick and Canavan but he inexplicably put one on the debit side as well.
Under pressure from Brian Kennedy, Ryan looked like he was trying to play the ball away to a defender but ended up dropping it into his own net. This didn’t appear immediately to unnerve Kerry but the free score propped up their opponents.
Incrementally the contest changed course. Tyrone began to outline insecurities in the opposition as they ran forward and in injury-time before the break they rattled over three points from a Darren McCurry free, Cormac Quinn and the evergreen Mattie Donnelly, who ended up as TG4′s man of the match after what was only his second full match in two years after a horrendous run of injuries.
Equally crucially they took a grip on the All-Ireland champions’ forwards – sometimes literally and referee Martin McNally was inclined to victim blame when blowing up attackers for overholding as they tried to fend off some stiff challenges.
Nonetheless Pádraig Hampsey kept David Clifford on a tight leash – 0-1 from play – and even when he slipped free in the second half, Frank Burns was on hand to make a saving block. Peter Harte gradually got on top of O’Shea and Kerry looked blunt in the second half despite a lively appearance off the bench by Donal O’Sullivan.
The centrefield curse was maintained with Stefan Okunbor, an energetic presence until forced off in the second with a hamstring injury.
They found scoring hard after the break, managing just two points after Paul Murphy’s 46th minute goal, to which Tyrone impressively responded with four successive points – the pick being a soccer-style step-over by Canavan, which left him free to race in and fist a point to put his team into a lead they never lost.
The margin was extended in injury-time by two frees from Canavan’s brother Ruairí but manager Feargal Logan was still apprehensive about a goal out of nowhere – as unlikely as that appeared to onlookers.
“I was still panicking they might still get in for a goal because we have been porous. The defending was good in the last 20 minutes, we banked back a wee bit but we tried to keep a threat.
“It’s a difficult balance nowadays when they have Clifford and O’Shea, O’Sullivan who came in, between defence and attack but we married the two well today and we were potent enough up front. I felt Darragh was outstanding too in terms of his contribution and then wee Ruairí came in. So, we are happy all round.”
Jack O’Connor wasn’t best pleased with the outcome and the imbalance in frees awarded.
“There was a bit of a breeze there and for whatever reason we couldn’t seem to buy a free in the second half.”
Positives?
“Well, I thought the boys fought away and they didn’t have a whole lot of luck in the second half but at the moment, it is not easy to see the positives. We were in a position early on to drive on and I thought we took the foot off the gas a small bit and as I said I thought the goal was a big turning point.”
Despite the contrasting circumstances in which they came into the match, the counties are now level on four points with two matches to come: Kerry, against Connacht pair Roscommon and Galway and Tyrone, a strictly local run-in against Monaghan and Armagh.
TYRONE: N Morgan; M McKernan, P Hampsey, C Meyler; C Quinn (0-1), P Harte (0-1), C Munroe; B Kennedy (1-0), J Oguz (0-1); D Mulgrew (0-1), C Kilpatrick (0-1), F Burns; D McCurry (0-3f), M Donnelly (0-3), D Canavan (0-2).
Subs: N Sludden for Mulgrew (42 mins), N Devlin for Munroe (53 mins), R Canavan (0-2f) for McCurry (69 mins), R Donnelly for Kennedy (73 mins).
KERRY: S Ryan; G O’Sullivan, J Foley, T O’Sullivan (0-1); P Warren, T Morley, P Murphy (1-0); J Barry, S Okunbor; D Moynihan, S O’Shea (1-2, 01f), T Brosnan (0-2); P Clifford, D Clifford (0-3, 0-2f), D Roche.
Subs: D O’Sullivan (0-1) for Roche (half-time), R Murphy for Brosnan (46 mins), M Burns for P Clifford (54 mins), G Horan for Okunbor (59 mins),
Referee: M McNally (Monaghan).
TYRONE: N Morgan; M McKernan, P Hampsey, C Meyler; C Quinn (0-1), P Harte (0-1), C Munroe; B Kennedy (1-0), J Oguz (0-1); D Mulgrew (0-1), C Kilpatrick (0-1), F Burns; D McCurry (0-3f), M Donnelly (0-3), D Canavan (0-2).
Subs: N Sludden for Mulgrew (42 mins), N Devlin for Munroe (53 mins), R Canavan (0-2f) for McCurry (69 mins), R Donnelly for Kennedy (73 mins).
KERRY: S Ryan; G O’Sullivan, J Foley, T O’Sullivan (0-1); P Warren, T Morley, P Murphy (1-0); J Barry, S Okunbor; D Moynihan, S O’Shea (1-2, 01f), T Brosnan (0-2); P Clifford, D Clifford (0-3, 0-2f), D Roche.
Subs: D O’Sullivan (0-1) for Roche (half-time), R Murphy for Brosnan (46 mins), M Burns for P Clifford (54 mins), G Horan for Okunbor (59 mins),
Referee: M McNally (Monaghan).
