14-man Mayo caught at death by Clifford 

Footballer of the Year David Clifford broke Mayo hearts with a last-gasp winning point in a Division 1 clash that exploded into life in the second-half at Austin Stack Park, Tralee, on Saturday night.

Kerry had to withstand a fierce surge from the visitors who had been reduced to fourteen players following the 59th minute dismissal of Sam Callinan. Three points in arrears at that stage, the prospects for Kevin McStay’s side didn’t look good, however, they remarkably scored four of the game’s next five points to draw level entering stoppage time. What followed was a sixth and final point from play by the mercurial Clifford, right on the buzzer, to hand Mayo their first defeat of the season.

It was probably a fair result. Kerry’s inaccuracy had largely kept Mayo in the game in the opening half, which also saw Mayo goalkeeper Colm Reape and midfielder Jack Carney block goal attempts by David Clifford and Gavin White. Indeed Mayo could be quite relieved to only trail by two points at the turnaround, 0-7 to 0-5, but they redeemed themselves greatly after half-time with a spirited display that very nearly yielded a result.

The Clifford brothers, David and Paudi, had accounted for four of Kerry’s opening five points, and with Sean O’Shea recovering from a couple of early misses to hit over two frees, the Kingdom led 0-6 to 0-4 after 28 minutes. Defender Sam Callinan was an unlikely scorer of two of Mayo’s points at this stage after which an exchange from play between Ryan O’Donoghue and Kerry full-back Jason Foley kept the margin at two at the turnaround.

The Green and Red would score twice what they had managed in the first-half in the second, but that fell agonisingly short of what was required. As he had in the first, Fergal Boland scored their opening point, but Mayo were always engaged in a game of catch-up. There were first points of the evening for Jordan Flynn and Bob Tuohy but Kerry had managed to move into a 0-14 to 0-11 lead when an already booked Callinan was black carded by referee Derek Mahoney, to leave Mayo a man short for the remainder.

Amazingly, McStay’s men would level, with Reape, Boland and O’Donoghue all on target from distance, and in fact Rory Brickenden even had the opportunity from a difficult mark to put Mayo in front in the 71st minute, but his effort flew a fraction wide.

Only the fumes of stoppage time remained when, from a Mayo perspective, Kerry worked the ball into the hands of the wrong man at the wrong time. Clifford was never going to miss.

Mayo would look to recover from this first loss of the Allianz Football League when they visit Omagh next Saturday for a Round 4 clash with Tyrone.