ALLIANZ NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE DIVISION ONE Kerry 1-10 Dublin 1-12:DESPITE KERRY'S excellent recent track record in the Allianz National Football League, Dublin's ultimately exciting victory in Killarney yesterday does come with caveats.
They have opened previous campaigns with victories over the All-Ireland champions and still their season didn’t prosper. Kerry, on the other hand, have made losing on the first day back something of an absent-minded habit.
Yet for the Leinster champions, who suffered perhaps their most grievous humiliation in a decade of disappointment against Kerry last August, this was a therapeutic afternoon and a first NFL win in the Kingdom since 1982.
It was achieved with just five of the team that started in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final and if the champions didn’t have a much different representation from that match, Dublin manager Pat Gilroy was pleased with the performance of his team.
“I don’t think the results really matter. At this time of the year it’s about seeing young guys and how they acquit themselves at this level. There were a lot of good Kerry players playing today so you could see who was able for this level. We were very happy. They worked hard. But at the end of the day it’s a February league match; that’s all it is.”
The newcomers did well in what was an enthusiastic display. A couple of changes before the throw-in saw Ross O’Carroll, the team’s putative full back, replaced because of a Sigerson Cup injury, which will keep him out for a couple more weeks, by Paul Conlon with brother Rory moving to number three and Blaine Kelly coming in for Bernard Brogan on the other square.
Dublin successfully crowded Kieran Donaghy at full forward and on the couple of occasions he slipped free a tame finish and a wild wide from Declan O’Sullivan were the extent of the damage. Otherwise Dublin covered well with David Henry dropping back from corner forward to play behind the half backs.
As a unit they scrapped away productively but need to address a tendency to lose possession that led to chances and scores for the opposition.
Eamonn Fennell, taking a break from his status as the most legally contentious sportsman since Jean Marc Bosman, gave another industrious performance at centrefield and got up for three points, presumably sharpening the management’s desire that his club status be regularised as soon as possible.
It was ironic that a half-forward line that looked configured for defensive duty in its assemblage of centrefield and defence operatives actually drummed up 1-4 for the team in scores from play.
Michael MacAuley plugged away at centre forward but also provided some creative touches, including a deft touch on a dropping ball from Ross McConnell that allowed Paul Flynn scoot in for a goal just minutes before half-time.
That gave the visitors a distinct edge in a match they had led for most of the first half despite never managing to pull away, as Kerry chipped out scores of their own including three from play from Paul Galvin. Kevin McManamon in the two-man inside line with Kelly, was a constant trouble for Pádraig Reidy, pulling wide and taking the ball out in front, and came close on a couple of occasions to enlarging his one-point haul.
In the second half Dublin turned up the volume and the lead was maintained at a healthy four, five or six points until the last 10 minutes when Dublin became penned back in their own half, as Kerry pressed and referee Rory Hickey awarded a succession of frees.
Halfway through the three minutes of injury time, Killian Young carved a promising route across the end-line and his driven ball found Barry John Walsh whose crisp finish to the net raised the prospect of Dublin allowing another tight league match against Kerry slip.
But with the match swaying at 1-11 to 1-10 in the final moments and amid all of the alarms and excursions that followed it was Kerry who coughed up possession to MacAuley and he raced in on goal before fisting the point that extended the lead and concluded the match.
Kerry selector Ger O’Keeffe, standing in for manager Jack O’Connor whose father passed away at the weekend, took on board the implications of the afternoon: “Our lads did show plenty of application in the second half and I suppose if we played for the rest of the game as we did in the final 10 minutes it might have been different.
“Still, there was a lesson there for us. It’s very early in the year but it was a lesson to us that we won’t win games just because we’re All-Ireland champions.”
Gilroy was looking ahead to the visit of Derry next Saturday. “It’s all about being consistent in what we do. There’s no point in doing this and then going and playing brutal next week”.
DUBLIN: S Cluxton; H Conlon, R O'Carroll, P McMahon; P Griffin, C O'Sullivan, J McCarthy; E Fennell (0-3), R McConnell; A Hubbard (0-1), M McAuley (0-1), P Flynn (1-2); D Henry, B Kelly (0-2, frees), K McMenamon (0-2). Subs: B Brogan (0-1, free)for Kelly (49 mins), D Kelly for Hubbard (62 mins), T Diamond for K McManamon (68 mins).
KERRY: G Reidy; P Reidy, T Griffin, A O'Connell; M Corridan, A O'Mahony, K Young; S Scanlon, M Quirke; P Galvin (0-4), D O'Sullivan, D Walsh; BJ Walsh (1-1, point a free), K Donaghy, P O'Connor (0-5, three frees and one 45). Subs: A O'Sullivan for Quirke (48 mins), P O'Connor for Corridan (48 mins), J O'Donoghue for O'Connor (57 mins), BJ Keane for D Walsh (66 mins), K O'Leary for D O'Sullivan (70 mins).
Referee: R Hickey(Clare).
