Meath 0-9 Kerry 2-18
A few days out from Kerry’s trip to Navan, former captain Bryan Sheehan urged the Munster champions to be ruthless and to finally cut loose.
They hadn’t scored a goal in the Championship, he noted, and they hadn’t done a whole pile generally to suggest they were trending towards another All-Ireland success.
So did he get his wish in Navan? Well, yes, if you’re to be guided by bald statistics. Kerry scored two goals, or more specifically David Clifford did, so that box has belatedly been ticked. They also held Meath to less than 10 points.
“We hit the targets we were looking for,” said Kerry manager Jack O’Connor.
It still wasn’t Kerry at their vintage best though. Or anything like it. With almost 50 minutes on the clock, they led by just five points and were under quite a bit of pressure initially in the third quarter as a resurgent Meath cut a seven point half-time deficit to five.
Then Clifford finally got that goal which Kerry have craved and suddenly it was as if a release valve had been opened.
The reigning footballer of the year added a second goal in stoppage time and finished with 2-2 overall, despite veteran Meath defender Donal Keogan probably feeling he did a pretty good job on the Fossa phenom.
Kerry outscored Meath by 2-8 to 0-4 in total from the 49th minute onwards as their greater experience and quality was ultimately brought to bear.
Clifford was probably planning his exit strategy from the pitch long before full-time as he made a beeline towards the tunnel at the long whistle and escaped the hordes of autograph hunters. Lest we do him a disservice, he hung around afterwards before boarding the team bus to sign jerseys and programmes.
On their lack of intensity for the first three quarters of the game, Kerry manager O’Connor shrugged.
“It may have been difficult [to bring it] because we were hearing for the last couple of weeks about how poor Meath are,” he said. “No matter what way you talk to players, that seeps into their psyche. They’re human beings and they hear this stuff and they think it will be a bit easier than what it actually is.”
Meath didn’t exactly scare Kerry at any point but Colm O’Rourke’s young side - Sean Ryan was handed a Championship debut and two more, Brian O’Halloran and Michael Murphy, started their first Championship games - put in a decent first half performance.
They conceded the Kerry kick-out, opting to funnel back in big numbers and hit Kerry on the break where possible. It worked, to a point. They created plenty of opportunities but couldn’t convert them, kicking eight first half wides and dropping several more efforts short.
“We had 14 shots in the first half and Kerry had 14 shots in the first half yet we ended up with three points and they ended up with 10,” said Meath manager Colm O’Rourke. “So they had the accuracy whereas we didn’t.”
It was a fair summation. With Clifford and Sean O’Shea initially well held by Keogan and Adam O’Neill, Kerry left it to midfielders and defenders to kick long range scores over Meath’s green wall. Brian O Beaglaoich and Tom O’Sullivan hit five first-half points between them. Midfielders Joe and Diarmuid O’Connor added two more.
If Meath had been as efficient with their shooting, maybe they could have really got the 8,224 crowd behind them and unnerved Kerry. It didn’t happen though and while they enjoyed a decent first 15 minutes of the second half, it only yielded two more points.
Then the green dam they’d erected burst with O’Sullivan feeding Clifford for the opening goal and a slew of Kerry players adding points before Clifford popped up at the end of a snaking passing move in stoppage time to strike their second.
Kerry will play Louth next, on the weekend of June 15/16 and, once they avoid defeat, will finish top of Group Four and be propelled through to an All-Ireland quarter-final. Just about the outcome everyone anticipated though they’re still holding plenty in reserve.
“I’ve no doubt that we will be better the next day,” assured O’Connor.
Despite their third loss in a row in the Championship, all is not lost for Meath. If they beat Monaghan in round three they’ll advance to an All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final.
That’s a big ask, though. They’re hugely inexperienced at this level, are still battling injuries to key players and look out of ideas much of the time in attack.
“We’d love to go into the transfer market and get Sean O’Shea or Paudie Clifford or David Clifford or some of the good Dublin forwards,” said O’Rourke. “We just don’t have that clinical edge to our performances. It’s let us down now for the whole year.”
Meath: B Hogan; Ronan Ryan, A O’Neill, D Keogan; C Caulfield (0-1), B O’Halloran, S Coffey (0-1); C Hickey, C Gray; M Murphy, D Campion, S Ryan; C O’Sullivan, M Costello (0-2, one free), E Frayne (0-4, two frees).
Subs: R Jones for Gray (h/t), J Morris for Murphy (h/t), J O’Connor (0-1) for O’Sullivan (47), C McBride for Coffey (54), Ross Ryan for Campion (58).
Kerry: S Ryan; T O’Sullivan (0-2), J Foley, D Casey; B O Beaglaoich (0-3), M Breen, G White; D O’Connor (0-1), J O’Connor (0-1); T Brosnan (0-2), P Clifford (0-1), C Burke; D Clifford (2-2, one free), S O’Shea (0-3, one 45, one mark), P Geaney (0-1).
Subs: D Moynihan (0-1) for Burke (49), K Spillane (0-1, mark) for Geaney (55), D Geaney for Brosnan (55), A Spillane for D O’Connor (61), S O’Brien for Breen (61).
Referee: L Devenney (Mayo).
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