Minor misery as Kerry’s kickers make the difference

For the second Sunday running, the championship aspirations of a Mayo football team evaporated in the fumes of stoppage time. In fact, in the space of 37 days – from May 16 to June 22 – the All-Ireland hopes of senior, under-20 and minor teams were ended by a combined total of five points, while the senior ladies also exited the race for the Brendan Martin Cup last Saturday, despite their best performance of the year. Factor in the one point Nickey Rackard Cup final defeat in Croke Park for the senior hurlers, and it’s been a rather sobering month or so for Mayo GAA.

In the aftermath of the senior footballers loss to Donegal last Sunday week, the discrepancy in the amount of two-pointers scored by either team in this year’s championship – Donegal had struck sixteen compared to Mayo’s three – was honed in on. It was only natural to do so, particularly in the context of a one point defeat for Mayo in a match where they didn’t score from outside the arc but Donegal did, twice.

Seven days later, a similar shortcoming in Mayo’s game handed Kerry a definite advantage when the two counties faced off in Sunday’s All-Ireland minor semi-final. The Green and Red tried but couldn’t kick a two-point score with the breeze behind them in the first-half. Within ten minutes of playing with the wind in the second-half, Kerry had launched three balls between the Mayo posts from outside the arc. They scored a fourth just before the long whistle was blown on a three points victory for the Kingdom, 1-19 to 3-10.

“They’re a brilliant team, the striking, Kerry just have them natural forwards,” admitted Mayo’s joint manager David Heaney afterwards.

“The ease, the way they kick the ball, the two pointers, it’s so easy, there was no effort in those kicks at all,” added Heaney who felt Mayo’s first-half display was the rock upon which they perished.

“We started nervously, we took three, four or five pot shots from not the right places, two pointers, outside of the foot, it just wasn’t working for us, and we should have been leading by more at half-time.

“In comparison, Kerry started the second-half with three two-pointers and in no time they were five or six ahead. The effort and energy we had to expend to get back level, and even go ahead, we were just flat on our feet at the end,” said Heaney, whose team had gone one point in front in the 49th minute and again, in the first of five minutes of stoppage time.

“We’re very disappointed but you can’t fault what the boys did for us on the pitch. You can’t fault their effort. Just at crucial times, Kerry got on top of us. We got a point ahead, we knew there was five minutes of injury time, but we just couldn’t get our hands on the ball pretty much after that. Kerry dominated the last few minutes,” said Heaney, whose pride in his players was obvious.

“Delighted with how they played, disappointed the result didn’t go our way. We couldn’t have asked for any more from them.

“I’d say Kerry were full value for their win. They’re a very big, physical team. I was surprised at how strong they were around the middle; even though we broke even and possibly even won it, when we had to win the few balls at the end, we just couldn’t get our hands on it.” 

Ben Kelliher shot the opening two points of the game, in what would end as an eight points haul by the Dr Crokes corner-forward, but a twelfth minute Cian May goal had Mayo’s noses in front until Maidhc Ó Sé raised green at the other end in the 22nd minute, off the back of a superb delivery by centre-back David Sargent. However, a penalty converted by Dara Flanagan, which saw Kerry lose goalkeeper Ruairí Kennedy to a black card, restored Mayo’s lead and by half-time they were 2-5 to 1-7 in front.

With the wind at their backs from thereon however, Kerry wasted no time in pulling clear, with early second-half scores from outside the arc by Kelliher and Kevin Griffin, twice.

“We said at half-time there’d be points where Kerry most likely would get ahead, that’s just the honesty of it,” explained David Heaney afterwards. “But we said to just be patient. And even still I thought we were a bit on edge, we probably kicked four or five balls away when we didn’t need to – but it’s easy to talk now when you haven’t Kerry lads bouncing and banging off you, and you’re trying to win ball and take men on.” 

Such was Mayo’s resistance that Kerry went from five points ahead to not scoring at all between the 43rd and 57th minutes, as Mayo substitute Oran Murphy helped turn the game on its head, scoring a brilliant goal and helping to set up two points for Conor Hession, with further singles by Dara Flanagan and Ben Holmes seeing the underdogs take a 3-10 to 1-15 advantage by the 61st minute.

Kerry, however, showed great composure down the stretch as Gearóid White’s third point levelled the game before sub Nick Lacey and the excellent Ben Kelliher, from a two point free, kicked their side into a final showdown with Tyrone.

“You play a lot of challenge games trying to formulate your team but it’s only when the championship comes that you see who’s up for it or who’s ready for it or what positions are best for some players.

“The players took everything on board, we moved them around. It’s like water off a duck’s back, they don’t mind, they’ll do whatever they can to give themselves the best chance of winning,” continued Heaney whose concern now is that his players view this as only the beginning and not as the end.

“I think the future’s bright for a lot of them, it’s just the gap between 17 and 20, that’s where you lose a lot of players. After the Leaving Cert, lads go to college and some of them lose a bit of interest in football and get an interest in other things,” noted the former Mayo senior captain. He’s encouraged, however, by Mayo GAA’s introduction of an under-19 squad which is being overseen by another ex-county defender, Colm Boyle.

“I think that’s the stepping stone they need to take; keep working on their S&C, keep working on their skills, and try and stay involved in the system for as long as you can, and eventually if we start getting two or three out of under-20s up to senior every year, that’s essentially what you want.”