All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final: Dublin 1-13 Kerry 1-14
NOTHING in Gaelic football comes close to when the game's blue-bloods meet. Yesterday, Kerry and Dublin produced a breathless, adrenaline-pumped All-Ireland semi-final at a sun-splashed Croke Park – the climax of which demanded that it be watched through sweaty, clasped hands.
This was pure theatre. Nail-biting, exhilarating stuff.
And what an awesome finish, a game that will forever be etched in the hearts and minds of the 73,602 lucky ticket holders who journeyed to headquarters and were treated to yet another compelling chapter in the storied history of Kerry versus Dublin.
Thirteen years waiting for a Championship win over your rivals is a life-time down in Kerry. Jack O’Connor was in charge when the Kingdom ran over the top of Pat Gilroy’s hapless Dubs back in 2009.
While Jack was away Kerry people endured five straight Championship defeats to Dublin and had to wait for the Dromid Pearses man to return and balance the books.
It was a victory worth waiting on too as Kerry can now look forward to a tantalising All-Ireland final showdown with Galway in just 13 days’ time.
Yesterday’s semi-final was settled by the right boot of Sean O’Shea in the last remaining seconds.
It's fair to say Kerry’s attacking powerhouse had a mad day in the capital.
He made a dream start to yesterday's semi-final, suffered a terrible mid-game nightmare before celebrating a fantasy finish.
After fellow attacker David Clifford was felled over 50 metres from Dublin’s goal, the odds were stacked against O’Shea getting the accuracy and distance from his placed ball effort.
Kicking into the Hill 16 End can be a cursed business too. The erratic, swirling wind that comes off the terraced end of the stadium can make a fool out of the best of free-takers.
But, perhaps the rich sea of blue O’Shea was staring into gave Dublin’s white posts a little more definition than normal.
The smart money, however, was on this semi-final going to extra-time - until O’Shea shuffled his feet, looked up, puffed out his chest and found the sweet spot of the O’Neill’s size five.
He sent this monster free way out to the right before the ball embarked on the perfect, untouchable, fateful arc and landed between Dublin’s posts.
A hero was formed.
It was the kind of incredible kick worthy of winning any game, let alone an All-Ireland semi-final against your greatest rivals.
Apart from a small pocket of green and gold in the top right-hand corner, Hill 16 fell silent, absolutely devastated at O’Shea’s outrageous accuracy and distance.
Had O’Shea kicked his first-half penalty with the same kind of conviction, Kerry wouldn’t have had to wait until the 77th minute to win this semi-final.
The Kenmare Shamrocks clubman looked invincible in the early exchanges of yesterday’s clash, finding Dublin’s net after just four minutes after Eoin Murchan, inexplicably, left a gaping hole along the end-line that allowed O’Shea to advance and raise a green flag.
Sitting on 1-2 from open play, O’Shea seemed the right man to drive home the penalty five minutes before the interval.
And if he’d converted, it would have put Kerry 2-7 to 0-6 in front and an already struggling Dublin side out of this year’s All-Ireland.
Comerford’s comfortable penalty save had a galvanising effect on the Dubs in the second half as Dessie Farrell’s men chipped away at Kerry’s lead – and resolve – and finally drew level in the 69th minute through Ciaran Kilkenny.
Dean Rock was forced to draw them level again with a 75th minute free after O’Shea had edged Kerry in front seconds earlier with a close-range free of his own.
But cometh the hour – cometh the man. O’Shea showed amazing strength of character to bounce back from his penalty miss to grab the late winner that edges Kerry closer to their first All-Ireland success since 2014.
On a day like yesterday O’Shea didn’t stand alone. For there were other heroic displays in both trenches of this epic battle.
David Clifford’s genius is already widely known, and he didn’t disappoint on the big stage with an astonishing exhibition of point-scoring in the opening half, leaving Michael Fitzsimons punch-drunk before the break.
Ciaran Kilkenny and James McCarthy posted brilliant second half displays for Dublin. Dara Moynihan excelled when sprung from the Kerry bench for Stephen O’Brien in the 41st minute, while Paudie Clifford’s ball carrying and point-taking under pressure were things of beauty.
Kerry wing-backs Gavin White and Brian Ó Beaglaíoch proved again they are the real deal, with White winning the crucial turnover in his own half of the field before sprinting to the edge of the square to collect David Clifford’s effort that came back off Dublin’s post.
The ball dropped into his arms before he was adjudged to have been fouled by Lorcan O’Dell.
By the time the Kerry penalty was actually taken, Dublin had sufficiently run down the clock so that the black-carded John Small could return to the fray.
The Dubs sensed there was still plenty of ball to be played in this semi-final, and leadership came in familiar guise: Kilkenny and James McCarthy.
When he was stationed on the edge of the square for most of the opening half, Kilkenny didn’t get any change out of Jason Foley.
And although he was sacked a couple of times by some fantastic, aggressive tackling from Kerry in the second half, the Castleknock man never flinched.
Still trailing by five points [1-10 to 0-8] with 45 minute played, Dublin somehow found a way back into the game.
When Kerry midfielder David Moran failed to collect Moynihan’s pass, the Dubs pounced, worked the ball through the hands and then off-loaded to Cormac Costello who found the corner of the Kingdom’s net at the Canal End with his weaker right foot.
It was a beautiful, calm finish from the Dublin forward who had been poor up to that point.
Even before Costello’s major, Kilkenny and McCarthy were already moving better than they had done in the first half. Kilkenny fisted over his first of three second-half points to make it a one-point game.
But Kerry managed to stem the Dublin tide and held their rivals scoreless between Kilkenny’s 47th minute point until the 62nd minute.
Kerry weren’t exactly prolific themselves during this desperately nervous period, but Paudie Clifford mined two crucial scores, in the 51st and 62nd minutes, to put the Munster champions three in front.
McCarthy replied immediately for Dublin and broke Kerry’s next kick-out, rising above Diarmuid O'Connor, which led directly to Kilkenny pinching his second of the day.
Momentum swung back to the Dubs when Kilkenny nailed his third with a minute of normal time remaining to draw the game.
This was the mother of all stress tests for Kerry against a far from vintage Dublin side, who had just enough muscle memory to haul themselves into contention and move to within a hair’s breadth of an All-Ireland final place.
But Kerry still had Sean O’Shea. They had Paudie Clifford, Jack Barry and Adrian Spillane scrapping for everything, the canny possession play of Dara Moynihan and David Clifford, now being shadowed by Dublin substitute Davy Byrne, always a threat at the far end of the field.
In those torturous six minutes of stoppage-time, Kerry made enough good decisions in possession to edge in front again when O’Shea sent over a close-range free in the 74th minute.
Almost duty-bound, Dean Rock took full advantage of his free that was moved in for dissent to level it up a minute later.
Extra-time loomed. Penalties maybe.
And even when David Clifford won the free over 50 metres from Dublin’s posts, it seemed outrageous to think O’Shea would convert it.
Through clasped hands, the 73,602 supporters watched as the ball arced perfectly, down the throat of Hill 16.
Sean O'Shea won't hit a better free - or a worse penalty - for the rest of his days.
Kerry and Dublin: the age-old rivalry that keeps on giving...
Dublin: E Comerford; E Murchan, M Fitzsimons, L Gannon (0-1); J Small (0-1), J Cooper, S Bulger (0-1); B Fenton (0-1), T Lahiff; J McCarthy (0-1), B Howard (0-1), C Kilkenny (0-3); C Costello (1-0), D Rock (0-3 frees), L O’Dell Subs: P Small (0-1) for L O’Dell (40), D Byrne for J Cooper (41), S McMahon for L Gannon (57), N Scully for P Howard (61), C Murphy for M Fitzsimons (72)
Black card: J Small (21-35)
Yellow cards: E Murchan (35), D Byrne (73)
Kerry: S Ryan; G O’Sullivan, J Foley, T O’Sullivan (0-1); B Ó Beaglaíoch, T Morley, G White; D Moran, J Barry; D O’Connor, S O’Shea (1-4, 0-2 frees), S O’Brien; P Clifford (0-2), D Clifford (0-6, 0-2 frees, 0-1 mark), P Geaney Subs: D Moynihan (0-1) for S O’Brien (41), K Spillane for P Geaney (41), A Spillane for D Moran (51), P Murphy for G O’Sullivan (62), J O’Connor G White (66)
Yellow cards: D Clifford (9), P Geaney (35), D O’Connor (49), A Spillane (54), S O’Shea (55)
Referee: P Neilan (Roscommon)
Attendance: 73,602
