Kerry 0-13 Offaly 0-9

[Lone Shark]

So there it is then – chalk another one down in that horrible column of “honourable defeats”. There have been way too many of them in the last few years to be quite honest. It seems ironic to be annoyed at honourable defeats after the debacle in Dublin two weeks ago where the defeat was anything but honourable and there was justification for saying our county football team was at its lowest ebb since the dark division 4 days of the early and mid 1990’s, but it galls nonetheless.

It galls because even though many of our players acquitted themselves well on Saturday night, this game was without question there to be won. At the risk of being accused of broken record syndrome, once again we saw several players being employed in roles where they were not at their best and a complete dearth of innovation or response to developing play from our sideline in terms of plugging the holes where we were shipping water. For players to have to endure this incompetence when giving 100% commitment themselves is very harsh and is without question responsible for the team morale which is appallingly low at the moment.

To sum up the game, we competed admirably across the backline and with the exception of one close range Declan O’Sullivan shot in the first half that blazed over the crossbar, we didn’t look like conceding a goal, and this in itself is certainly something to be pleased with. None of our full back line will be in the running for All Star awards this year, but the way they defended with discipline keeping on their feet and staying between attacker and goals at all times was a big help in keeping the Kerry forwards away from Padraig Kelly’s goals. In addition to this they attacked the ball selectively and cleared a lot of danger, greatly assisted in this regard by Alan McNamee who appeared to be nominated to drop back in general play and cover for his backsmen – a worthwhile ploy, and one that also helped in our playing the ball out of the backline.

Midfield was a disaster area all night. Darragh Ó’Sé is without question one of the country’s best fielding midfielders and a hard man to contain at the best of times, that much is a given. Certainly he offers a challenge that our players are not well equipped to contain – however this does not excuse the lack of any type of coherent plan, or even wild guess as to how to stem the flow of possession that Kerry were securing around the middle of the field. In addition to this, Kieran Donaghy was finding space on a regular basis, and a la Jason Sherlock a fortnight ago, he was involved in most of Kerry’s moves up the field, always presenting himself as an unmarked outlet to the Kerry backs and carrying the ball at the Offaly defence with intent. Equally, in a going forward context, the midfield did not contribute very well, in many cases giving poor quality ball to the forwards.

Up front when we played with a two man inside line – Niall and Thomas Deehan – the two lads linked up very well, and generally looked lively and threatening when hit with early ball. Deehan in particular continues his development at pace and is once again looking like the dangerous livewire that burst on to the scene a couple of years ago. In addition to this he now offers a viable scoring alternative to Niall, and in that regard the future looks reasonably bright if the two lads can stay fit.

All this begs the question – why did we revert to a three man line in the second half, thus crowding the lads out, and why did we hit high ball in on top of them, deliveries that Mike McCarthy and his colleagues were able to lap up with ease? And if we were hitting high ball in on top, why was Ross Connor not brought on?

Overall, the following would be my observations on the performance from the sideline, and unsurprisingly, most of them are negative.

(1) As I mentioned – Darragh Ó’Sé was lording matters – so why did we not try anything to counteract this? Maybe Ross Connor would have been able for him? Maybe Declan Kelly would have unsettled him? Maybe McManus would have been able to bring him out of midfield a bit more? Maybe Scott Brady would have been able to spoil ball a bit better on him, and live with him for strength? Colm Quinn plays at midfield for Ballycumber and is used to competing against bigger men, maybe he could have come up with something? Many of these are zany options, but trying something, anything, would have been better than letting him continue his dominance of Alan McNamee all night, and indeed catching several balls that were uncontested. I could accept trying something odd and failing – nonchalance is not really as forgivable.
(2) Colm Quinn is not a starter – much less as a wing forward who would have been forced to have spent most of his time tracking Mossy Lyons. Lyons’ bursts forward often went untracked and on two occasions these forays led to Kerry points. Quinn was unable to get on the ball enough and when he did he spent so much time on it going sideways that the forwards’ runs were well tracked. Ironically at the end of the game when he could have opened up the game and offered some variety to our deliveries he was off the field.
(3) Each substitution is a weapon – and leaving weapons unused in league games against the original aristocrats of gaelic football in their home stadium defies belief. All this talk of a 30 man game, or a 20 man game clearly does not sit well with our current management team, who obviously believe it’s a 17 man game at most.
(4) Leonard Mooney was brought into the county panel this year, and was given games to blood him and get him used to intercounty football. Personally I thought he was worth the try but would ultimately fall short – however in recent weeks the quiet way in which he has gone about the game, doing his defensive work, competing for breaks and delivering thoughtful early ball into the forwards had converted me, to the point where I considered him an ever so slight favourite to make the first fifteen on May 14th. Whether management agreed with this assessment or not is moot – the point is that he was improving, and deserved to be given the chance to keep going or play his way out of the jersey, as it were. Dropping him was harsh, not bringing him on when Reynolds was way out of the game was even harsher, and sadly one suspects he may not feature in any meaningful way between now and the end of the summer – a raw deal, in my estimation anyway.
(5) On a positive note – the tactic of one of the midfielders regularly dropping deep to cover the full back line is worthy, bearing in mind the relative inexperience of our backs. It offers a handy covering player should a high ball be delivered and also lends itself to the slow handpassing the ball out of defence that we (and all others!) play.

Overall, I’m still not impressed, needless to say. Now, player by player ……

Padraig Kelly: Was in a no win situation with the kickouts – didn’t use the right hand side too much, but other than that every tactic was utilised and proved equally fruitless. He gave a few heartstopping moments when leaving his goals, a habit that has caused us heartbreak in the past, but it’s possible that he knew what he was doing. Didn’t concede any goals anyway, which I suppose is the main thing.

Ger Rafferty: Was initially marking Ronan O’Connor, and saw him off, though O’Connor wouldn’t exactly be the archetypal Kerry corner forward and was probably suited to Rafferty. Kept Mike Frank under wraps after that – all in all a sound display, albeit against some of the blunter implements in the Kerry armoury, but has to be in the front line to start in the summer still.

Shane Sullivan: Had a quiet all round game but so did Declan O’Sullivan, which is a testament to the Rhode man. Probably needed the game to get himself back into the rhythm. I’d still prefer to see Casey here with Sullivan deployed in the half backs however.

Nigel Grennan: I haven’t seen them all, but this looked like his best game for the county yet. He got out in front of Cooper regularly, kept Cooper from getting goal side of him throughout and generally came off 50/50 at worst with the best forward in Ireland. Very impressive.

Kevin Lynam: Didn’t make any mistakes, but Brosnan still showed in front of him to win a lot of ball, and as a wing back he offers very little in an offensive sense. Lives on the line of breaking the rules a lot, but that in itself is no bad thing – it’s good to see that he’s not willing to be pushed around. I’ve no doubt he’s come on as a footballer for his time in the county lineup this year, but surely he’ll find at least six defenders ahead of him in the queue for slots against Westmeath.

Scott Brady: Very strong on the ball, and usually lays it off well – when he handpasses. When he kicks, it all goes horribly wrong. Shows well to take ball off struggling full back players, but needs to remember that just because he can take a pass under pressure and shrug off two opponents, not all of our players can, so he shouldn’t put them in that position.

Karol Slattery: Still appears to be carrying a bit of an injury – which is a worry, but remains one of our better players. Didn’t make as much hay with his attacking bursts this week, but needs to keep doing it.

Neville Coughlan: Seemed to cover a lot of ground, but if the policy was to leave both himself and Donaghy free, it backfired – Donaghy got on the ball a lot more and created a lot more for his forwards. His deliveries forward were still good, no doubt a result of his time playing up front and his resultant knowledge of what type of ball forwards want. Once more with feeling – belongs in the half forward line.

Alan McNamee: Covered ground, but he really couldn’t get going. Couldn’t live with Ó’Sé for high ball and when he did get possession some of his deliveries forward were very poor. Still not at or close to his Rhode form and it’s highly possible that the return of James Keane will put his position on the team under a lot of pressure.

John Reynolds: This folly of Reynolds as a half forward has to stop – it’s just not working. He’s too far out to score, he doesn’t have the strength to carry it past players and he doesn’t have the burst of speed that Ryan or Phelan would have. He should have been taken off by half time last night, and it’s time for management to have another look at where they want to play him. I repeat – inside forward or nowhere.

Ciarán McManus: Got on the ball a good bit, took the game to Kerry, dominated Tomás Ó’Sé, kept his discipline when fouled and scored one fantastic point. Against that, he still managed to blaze a close in shot high and wide, but once again he was at or near man of the match standard.

Colm Quinn: Utterly ineffective, he dwelled too long on the ball and struggled to do his defensive duty. 70 minutes is just too long for him to be honest, he needs to come in later in games.

Thomas Deehan: Along with Grennan and McManus, the third player who can be really proud of his night’s work. Constantly made good runs, got out in front and used the ball well. If I had any faith in our management’s ability to even get 50% of the potential of this team out I’d say he could be in for a very big year. I don’t have that faith.

Paschal Kelleghan: For the second consecutive week, he should have got a red card, and would have but for Kinneavy taking pity on him. The petulant fouls have to stop, he doesn’t get on the scoresheet anymore and his lazy way of competing for dirty ball never ends well. We have to have better options in my opinion.

Niall McNamee: Kicked a couple of good scores and missed a few as well. Most notable was the way he competed for high ball with great success, and linked up well with Deehan. The case for the two of them to be left in isolation up there is compelling in my view. I still believe over time he’ll thrive for being taken off free taking duty.

Sean Ryan: It was an ideal game for him, but sadly it’ll all be about that missed chance. Not having seen it from a few angles on TV, it’s harsh to go into it in detail, but sadly for Sean he never really had enough time or ball to make up for it.


I would describe the performances of more subs here but we didn't use any. Everyone was playing well it seems.

[azoffaly]

Hi Shark,

Good to see a few of ye down there on Saturday.

I'd be in broad agreement with most of your report above, but I would have the following amendments/disagreements, in my view.

1. The biggest bugbear of the night for me, and indeed has been for the last couple of years is the lack of movement in our inside forward line. I accept that we played 3 men inside versus the 2 inside in the first half, but lets be honest. Tralee is a big wide pitch, and inter county standard forwards should be able to make intelligent runs for the ball. Too often our forwards employed the Boys National School U11s tactic of waiting 3 yards behind their men, hoping for the perfect long pass over a backs head and into their chest. Newsflash. This does not work against good defenses. An inside forward line MUST make intelligent breaks for the ball, giving an outside man a good option, rather than the ubiquitous hoof from 70 yards.

The reason for this lack of movement is up for debate, but given that Kilmurray didn't take any of them off, you would have to say that it seems as if he is caught in a 1970's timewarp where you beat big high ball into a full forward line, and 'win the breaks'. That is not going to happen regularly with the personel inside there. Niall McNamee can win a few balls in the air, but why make your best scoring forward be a targetman, a spoiler. Remove the reins and let Thomas Deehan, James Coughlan, Niall McNamee or whoever run around and find space. Hit them with the LOW early ball then, a lá in the first half, and let them make hay.

In conclusion, I would not blame the outside men for hitting in high hopeful balls, I would blame the lack of anything resembling a dangerous run in the second half. The lack of movement may be laziness in the inside line, or as a result of instruction from the sideline. I suspect the latter in this case.

2. Midfield. As you say, Kerry lorded it in this sector when they needed to. The tactic of playing Alan McNamee as a deep lying midfielder when Kerry had the ball did work at times, but it also grated a lot of freedom to Kieran Donaghy. If that was Willie Kirby, Offaly would have suffered more. Dropping a midfielder deep needs a lot of covering by half forwards, and with a good ball moving team like Kerry, that takes a lot of practice. Still, a more promising development, and a sign that maybe Kilmurray doesn't think tactics are a kind of mint.

With regard to the fielding, and indeed the whole night, Kerry had an air of a team coasting along, and could resort to the whip when needed. Every time Offaly closed in the second half to within a point or two, Darragh O'Se or Donaghy, or Tomás O'Se came and won a vital kick out. As you rightly say, our sanguine attitude to being beaten in the air was astounding, and very worrying. It was as if we couldn't think, or didn't need to think, of a way to combat it. At under 12 level you are thought that if you are being out-fielded, then jaysus spoil him. Punch it, break it, tie him up. Kerry won primary possession many times by letting Diarmuid Murphy kick the ball high and to an area 5 or 10 yards away from the midfielders. The two lads would run onto it and jump uncontested, with our midfield 5 yards behind, and conceeding it.


3. One final point about Shane Sullivan. I don't share your opinion of how he played on Saturday. Declan O'Sullivan is never going to score 6 or 7 points for Kerry, but anyone who has watched Kerry over the years knows that he comes out the field, links play from midfield in and carries at the heart of the defence before off loading to a free man. O'Sullivan was very much to the fore in this area in the second half. Kerry scored 12 points, and I'd say Declan O'Sullivan was involved in at least 7 of them.

I'm not too worried about that today, but if we are to meet a roaming full forward type in the championship, especially a creator more than a scorer, I think Shane Sullivan could get exposed. Mind you, at that particular role, there are not many better in the country than Declan O'Sullivan, and I can't think offhand of one in Leinster.


Anyway, I'm frustrated because I think there is a Leinster in this bunch of players with correct tactics, and people employed in their best positions. And the frustration stems from the fact that under this management, I can see Westmeath having 2 or 3 points to spare over us in May.

[Lone Shark]

Overall, complete agreement with regard to the inside forwards - however Thomas Deehan did show for the ball regularly, and Niall can win that 50/50 high ball stuff if he's left isolated, so I still don't see the advantage of a third player - and accompanying marker - being left in there to clog things up. Ross Connor for the change of style, or possibly Trevor Phelan or Sean Ryan for pace, but generally I'd love the two lads work away.

The midfielder dropping generally only happened when Kerry had the ball and were advancing past the 45, and often the danger with Donaghy was that he was able to find space to take a quick ball out of defence - but even so I agree that the half forwards have to share some of the responsibility for tracking here. In saying that, Quinn was hard pressed keeping up with his own man, Mac seemed to be trying to avoid dropping way too deep so as to always be there to receive the ball out of defence, and Shaper did try to meet up with Donaghy a few times and just got swatted away like a fly - it was a poor half forward line to try and do this - once more with feeling, get Neville in there.

I'll accept that I hadn't noticed Declan O'Sullivan get the ball that much - he handled it a few times, but largely didn't beat players the way he can. The way I see it, if you stop Declan O'Sullivan from creating that extra man by taking his own player out of the equation, then you haven't done that badly. But then you could be right, maybe if I was to look at it again he did feature in most of Kerry's scores.

If you were to think about it though, Shane Sullivan would have been the kind of player suited to that style of marking job, on paper at least. Again, perhaps match fitness was a bit of an issue. On the other hand, maybe a swap with Lynam would have done the trick then?

At the risk of being branded a huge pessimist, my concern is gone way beyond Westmeath having 2 or 3 points on us - it's that they'll have nine points on us. Right now we just can't win that game, we're handicaping ourselves too much.

[Bord na Mona man]

At the risk of being branded a huge pessimist, my concern is gone way beyond Westmeath having 2 or 3 points on us - it's that they'll have nine points on us. Right now we just can't win that game, we're handicaping ourselves too much.

There's no way they could beat us by 9. They don't have the firepower for starters. They'd probably be luke-warm favourites, but that's about it.

Declan O'Sullivan will always be an extremely hard player to stop. He made inroads into our defence that caused trouble. Really all you can do is try and put the squeeze on him and his options...which probably requires about 12 defenders to do both.

I think we did ok to concede 13 points on a big pitch with Kerry winning nearly all of the kickouts.

In the second half we probably far too intent on using the wind instead of the ball. We hit the ball too early and aimlessly at times. If you're going to lorry it in, it really has to be dropping in around the danger areas...And you need someone to contest it.

We needed Ross Connor at either full forward or midfield. We had him at neither. Why do we bother with a 30 man panel if we only use 16 players?

What Offaly wouldn't give for the loan of Liam Hassett!

[azoffaly]

Anyway, did ye have a good session in Tralee? I hope so, because the chances are that we'll not see them for another while at the rate we are going.

[Lone Shark]

They can beat us by nine, for the simple reason that we are losing games badly while a lot of our players are playing well. You can rest assured that Westmeath will have specific tactics prepared for that game - does anyone honestly believe that our management team will be poring over 10 hours of footage of Westmeath playing football and coming up with a clear and coherent tactical strategy as a result?

Croke Park also has a way of making slight differences appear huge. Also the way we die at the end of games will get badly shown up by a hungry team eager to prove a point cutting loose. We have no ways of dealing with good fielding midfielders - even allowing for O'Connell being absent, they still have this Duffy lad and Shaughnessy - both better fielders than anything we have, even if they're not quite Darragh Ó'Sé.

From a betting perspective, Westmeath are 1/2 at the moment - however I just think that we won't be ready for the white heat of a championship local derby at all. McManus has been carrying us to a large extent so far this league campaign - however we all know he tends not to be at his best in Croke Park, and much less so when playing Westmeath where he tends to revert to some sort of angry feral nature instead of displaying the controlled aggression that makes him the player he is. Westmeath have a lot of poor slots, but they also have a fine collection of proven full back line players. If Niall and Tommo can be kept under wraps, our half forward line and midfield have not been scoring.

I am very, very afraid - as I've said, I'll be visiting the good lady on the far side of the globe when the game is on, but I still think it won't be far enough away.

You could probably pick about 6 or 7 Kerry lads you love to have the loan of - Sean O'Sullivan, Kirby, God knows Maurice could probably pull a few things out of the fire for us yet even at his age.


As for Tralee, it was a good run all right - an unspoken for individual could have done a lot of harm around that town, pity there were none around ....

[Bord na Mona man]

Wasn't a bad auld session. The whole of Ballycumber seemed to be in Tralee btw.
Started off with a couple in the Abbey Gate. Got lost on the back streets of the town a few times after that.
Saw one pub with a sign outside saying "We are still hurting over '82".

Ended up in that Fabric night club. Polished off a dodgy kebab and coughed up the €6 minimum taxi fare.

[Bord na Mona man]

They can beat us by nine, for the simple reason that we are losing games badly while a lot of our players are playing well. You can rest assured that Westmeath will have specific tactics prepared for that game - does anyone honestly believe that our management team will be poring over 10 hours of footage of Westmeath playing football and coming up with a clear and coherent tactical strategy as a result?

This is Wastemeath we're playing, not Tyrone or Kerry!
They lost to Sligo yesterday.
It will be dour and low scoring stuff. I'd say it'll finish about 12 points to 10.

[Ron]

I was at the game too and I think the backs did very well. It was great to see Kerry kicking crazy wides and hitting stray passes etc under pressure. The two obvious areas that let us down were midfield and forwards as well covered here already.

One of the simplest things that should have been changed on Sat night was that Niall Mc should not have been covering back down the field, this happened a lot particularly in the 2nd half, and it wasn't even his marker half the time, he was covering back on Donehy in our half back line?? Surely a player like Niall should be told to stay in the scoring zone and certailnly not to go outside that half od the field? I didn't once see Cooper covering back to that extent!

Ball into the forwards was poor in second half and perhaps Ross Connor would've caused some disruption if was put in on the edge of the small square.

All in all not a bad performance from us but the last 10-15 mins are losing us games. I'm hoping that Westmeath will still be in Div 2 mode when we play them. A good nigh out in Tralee at leat...

[turk]

Westmeath are poor lads!

They've Dessie dolan - and that's it!
Glennon is handy and apart from that they've a few fancy dans and forwards that can't score.