Both sides content to live for another day

FLUSHED UNDER a peaked cap, Darragh Ó Sé stood outside a box room of a television studio waiting for his interview. Another breathless day in Killarney, another stultifying draw.

The Gaeltacht man might have banked on a more comfortable spin through yesterday’s proceeding. As it turned out, he had hardly made himself comfortable on the team bench when Jack O’Connor came whistling for him 10 minutes into the match.

Another hour of championship football to add to the previous 15-plus years and now he found himself considering the prospect of a Saturday night replay in Cork city. Suddenly, the football season is in full carnival mode.

“We can probably both count ourselves lucky,” Ó Sé reflected. “They got a 45 (at the end) and we got a couple of lucky breaks as well. We are just delighted to get a draw. We didn’t play well but then we weren’t allowed play well. They horsed us out of it.

“We didn’t play as well as they have over the past couple of years. They are a physical side. They have been knocking on the door for the last couple of years and developing so it was no surprise to us. Work wise, it is basically mental more than anything else.

“We have to get our heads right for next week. We will look at today and see where we went wrong and try and rectify that next Saturday night.”

For all their flaws and shortcomings in this match, there was a nerveless aspect to the way that Kerry slowly and methodically forced their way back into the match.

They made their comeback during the very period of time when many other teams would be mentally resigning themselves to defeat.

To those of us behind the wire, these comebacks seem to originate in the Kerry mystique that we all love to talk about. It explains why Colm Cooper can deliver as audacious a score as he has ever hit in his local ball park after 60 minutes of misery. But there is no mystery to it, as one of Kerry’s most decorated players sees it.

“You just keep doing the things,” Ó Sé shrugged. “You win possession and keep getting into space. We have been around a long time and we have been in tight games.

“There is no real looking at the clock, you just keep plugging away and trying to put up the scores. We were lucky enough to get the scores back but that mightn’t be the case.”

Jack O’Connor grimaced when he was asked about the first half penalty that Colm Cooper screwed wide. That incident seemed like a long time ago, but when he reviewed it, the miss seemed to sum up the combination of good and bad that both teams offered up.

“The penalty came against the run of play and I didn’t think missing it was going to beat us. We missed that, they missed a couple of other chances so we were even-stevens there. We certainly got to grips at the middle of the field and got a bit more ball.

“Tomás (Ó Sé) made a few runs to lift the team and rally the team and that was a significant factor. Bryan Sheehan had a big impact and kicked three or four great points. I thought Tadhg (Kennelly) was excellent. He kicked a massive point there, despite all the criticism of his kicking.

“And he worked very hard. We just about pulled it out of the fire. Sheehan kicked a great free at the end, it was a pressure free and he nailed it.

“He kicked a great point from play as well. Look, overall you would have to say that Cork are the more disappointed of the two teams because they looked to have the game there halfway through the second half but we battled away.”

Conor Counihan didn’t look too disappointed, however. After all, as the 70th minute elapsed, it looked like his team were qualifier bound.

A home date by the Lee is not the end of the world.

He laughed when he was asked if he was aware that the game was in the fourth minute of injury-time when Sheehan floated the last score of the game.

“Even if he had played 24 minutes, it is all the run now because the score is not going to change. I am under no illusions: next week will be no different. It will be down to the wire.

“We put it up to them in their own back yard and we are bringing them back to Cork but the reality is that we have to go out and do it.”