National League Div 1A / Kerry 1-12 Dublin 0-12: You'd have to be of a certain age to detect any tingling in the spine when the green and gold of Kerry run out to share a pitch with the Dubs, writes Tom Humphries at Parnell Park.
Yesterday's instalment of football's longest running soap was interesting. Nothing more.
Of course the subplots had a ghoulish fascination. Jack O'Connor and Tommy Lyons are deemed to be the managers most under pressure this season and indeed until Kerry threw open their dressingroom doors at Parnell Park we media types had gathered like droopy-faced vultures outside the losing team's dressingroom door.
There had, thankfully, been no booing from the terraces but there was some bafflement flowing from the denizens thereof. Darren Homan's withdrawal from a physical battle at midfield to be replaced by the talented but slender tyro John Coughlan raised some eyebrows, as did the persistence with a couple of struggling forwards.
In the end Kerry had won a league match in Dublin for the first time in over two decades and they had done so without Gooch or the Gaeltacht boys. If Tommy Lyons and his team were spared the catcalls which some had feared would greet a second successive league defeat they couldn't be granted leave from helping with inquiries. A six-point half-time lead turned into a three-point loss? Go figure.
Instead of worrying about dual players perhaps Dublin GAA folk should be concerned about split personalities. Dublin weren't the timid side who scored a point from play in Mayo last week. Nor were they the battlers who wrestled a win from the All-Ireland champions two weeks ago. They blew hot and cold. The difficulty was that when they were hot they weren't exactly scorching, but when they were cold they were Arctic- frigid.
Perhaps we could take the fortunes of Conal Keaney and Séamus Moynihan as an index of how the game changed. By half-time Keaney had five points to his name, four of them from play. Trigger-happy and confident as a footballer, popping shots from everywhere and refusing to do the old Dub trick of soloing until he finds a cul-de-sac, for much of the first half he was marked by Moynihan and he gave the great man a hard time.
By the break, though, the Kerry duty roster had been changed. O'Connor is a quick diagnostician. Keaney had a new escort. Moynihan began bursting from wing half back. Eamon Fitzmaurice was working well.
From early in the second half Dublin looked flustered. Every time Fitzmaurice or Moynihan had the ball in their hands there was geometric movement in front of them, players running in diagonals into spaces. Moynihan made many of the bursting runs which were his trademark before his incarceration at full back and it was he who tipped the balance of the game a minute from the end with a fine point. Keaney had evaporated.
The change in Kerry's fortunes owed a lot to the speed at which their bench worked to remedy things. Donal Daly struggled and was removed early on. Eoin Brosnan at midfield made a huge difference. If Liam Hassett struggled for pace he still saw plenty of ball and the second-half performance of Declan O'Sullivan compensated for a quiet opening period. He gave Darren Magee an afternoon to remember.
Dublin had played the first half with a breezy, old-fashioned confidence and when Homan barrelled through after 20 minutes to put the home side five points to one up the Donnycarney end sparked up some songs of worship.
These days Dublin's confidence is as fragile and easily popped as a kid's soap bubble though. After seven minutes of the second half Kerry claimed their third point in succession and Dublin subs burst from the dugout like a fighter squadron suddenly scrambled. In the end (strangely) Dublin only made one change, replacing Homan with young Coughlan. Ray Cosgrove, not back to his best, and Graham Cullen, toiling fruitlessly, needed replacing by then.
By the 13th minute of the second half Kerry were level. Declan O'Sullivan was pushed in the back as he burst through into the large square at the Dublin end. Mike Frank Russell, nailing down some form again, stuck the penalty with aplomb.
Dublin got the next score through a Mossy Quinn free but Kerry scented blood. Seán O'Sullivan cut through the Dublin defence and lobbed Stephen Cluxton only to see the ball dip over the bar. Ronan O'Connor had a fine left-footed score.
Jason Sherlock equalised for Dublin after a nice pass from Keaney but then Kerry had an ominous run of four wides before Moynihan, Declan O'Sullivan and O'Connor tagged on three quick points to kill the game late on.
"We had a few unforced errors and they got a few great scores in the last minute and a half," said a morose Lyons on the short journey from dressing-room to car.
"We hit the crossbar twice and you know I think we'd have been happy with points on both of those occasions. We started well and nine points wasn't a reflection of our first-half performance. Should have got 11 or 12. The goal was the difference. I don't know if it was a penalty or not, everyone said it was."
The lack of colour and swagger in the manager's demeanour said as much about his team as the previous 70 minutes had. Everyone needs a big shot of confidence.
In the Kerry dressing-room there was a new openness. A little glasnost. Happy faces. "It looked bleak at half-time alright," said O'Connor. "The Dubs looked to have a lot of confidence but we thought if we got ball into the forwards we'd get scores. There was a breeze - we could move the ball in faster and longer. It's hard to know where it turned. Brosnan was very good for us when he went to midfield. Willie Kirby was good throughout. We keep telling fellas we haven't a lot of training done. We haven't."
Two sessions a day in Lanzarote last week though tell their own story of the quiet determination this young Kerry side have. Dublin left Parnell Park yesterday wondering just what is to become of them. Kerry seemed to know better times were on the way.
DUBLIN: S Cluxton; D Henry, P Christie, P Griffin; C Moran, D Magee, S Ryan; C Whelan (0-1), D Homan (0-1); S Connell, G Cullen, C Keaney (0-5, one free); T Quinn (0-4, three frees, 45), R Cosgrove, J Sherlock (0-1). Subs: J Coughlan for Homan (42 mins), L Óg Ó hÉineacháin for Cullen (64 mins) , J McNally for Cosgrove 64 mins.
KERRY: D Murphy; B Guiney, M McCarthy, A O'Mahoney; T Griffin, E Fitzmaurice, S Moynihan (0-1); W Kirby, D Daly; L Hassett, D O'Sullivan (0-1), E Brosnan; D Quill (0-2, one free), R O'Connor (0-3), MF Russell (1-4, 1-0 pen, 45). Subs: S O'Sullivan (0-1) for Daly (27 mins), J Crowley for Quill (54 mins).
Referee: B White (Wexford)
