On a day when the provincial football championships excited and deceived, Kerry made sure their Munster crown was not for surrendering. Not this year, and not likely any year soon.
Rarely have Cork come to Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney as stronger underdogs, with a rebel show of support too among the 32,691 crowd. They may have fooled some people into thinking they’d rise up to the challenge when racing five points clear early on, then getting back to within two points on the hour mark, but even still, this was a game Kerry never looked like losing, or maybe Cork just didn’t have enough belief to win.
In the end, Kerry ran out eight-point winners, 1-23 to 1-15, killing off Cork with six unanswered points that more reflected their superiority – David Clifford’s 1-6 once again leading the way. Their sixth Munster title in succession, and 13 of the last 14, it also completes part one of their championship campaign 13 days before Donegal come to town for an All-Ireland rematch in the first round of the race for the Sam Maguire.
All this was neatly contrasted with events later in the afternoon at Dr Hyde Park, where Roscommon denied Galway a fifth successive Connacht football title, winning by two points, 3-21 to 2-22. Although Galway went six points ahead in the 61st minute through a Damien Comer goal, Roscommon raged against the dying of the clock, two pointers from Paul Carey, Daire Cregg and finally Diarmuid Murtagh completing their joyous comeback.
READ MORE
It was their first Connacht title since 2019, when they also beat Mayo and Galway in the same campaign, and completes the set of provincial senior, under-20 and minor titles for the first time in Roscommon’s history.
For Kerry manager Jack O’Connor, the already extensive injury list was looking even longer after this, although that took little from his look of utter satisfaction.
“We knew coming into this game that we’d have to earn this one because Cork are a decent team, showing good form,” he said. “Given the fact that we are down bodies at the moment, it was going to make that task even harder. I just thought some of the boys that came off the bench made a big contribution.
“The likes of Tony [Brosnan] kicking five points off the bench is a massive thing, Killian [Spillane] got his customary good score. Gavin White was just fantastic for a man who has very little football played.
“Dylan [Geaney] knitted the play together and kicked a great score. Even the likes of Eddie Healy came on there and looked right at home, came out with one ball there like Séamus Moynihan used to of old, like a knife through butter. So delighted with the lads who are standing up. Keith Evans was a revelation today. He’s come an awful long way in 12 months.”
As for Donegal coming down the tracks on Saturday week, O’Connor insisted he hadn’t yet given them any thought: “I never mentioned the word Donegal. Cross my heart. Never entered my head because we wanted to focus completely on this game.
“We knew there would be a big crowd here. We certainly didn’t want to lose a proud record here against Cork that goes back to ’95. That was our sole focus. Maybe tomorrow morning we’ll turn our thoughts to Donegal.”
Cork manager John Cleary was also looking ahead, conceding his team left too many scoring chances behind compared to Kerry’s consistency and efficiency.
“Look, the only thing we’re worried about now is dusting ourselves down after today and heading for Saturday week. We’ll see then. That’s a big, big game for us. We’ve had two titanic struggles with Meath and we’ve just got to get prepared for that. We’ll see then where it takes us after that.”
For Roscommon manager Mark Dowd, in his first year in charge, denying Galway a fifth successive title in that manner showed they’re certainly on the right track.
“It backs up what we’ve been trying to do all year,” he said. “Since the early days when we gathered a panel, and started putting plans in place, we wanted a physical team that was able to compete with the top teams. We showed that today, that we could.
“And it gave us that belief, but it showed massive composure from the lads I felt there in those last 10 minutes. They just kept their wits about them, they took it play by play and we got our scores there towards the end just to get over the line.”
