“It was a sensational score”
There are so many great goals you can score. There’s the rocket, where you put your foot right through the ball into the roof of the net; the calm, delicate roll into the corner from the inside of your foot; or, when you use the same part of your foot, but open up your body and send it floating into the top corner.
However, there is nothing that makes us feel quite as rebellious, giddy and cheeky as spotting the goalkeeper off their line and lobbing that big floating ball in over their head, to drop right under the black spot.
It gives the manager a wry smile, as he thinks “that lucky b*****d”, because if it had’ve dropped into the keeper’s hands – as it so often does – then you would have been hooked straight from the pitch for “taking the p**s,” followed by the usual “just take your f****ing point.”
The sub bench erupts with applause, laughter and if you’re from up north, a customary “yeoooooo!”
You’ll have tried doing it at every underage training session, especially from u16 when you move to size five footballs and the big nets.
Gavin White boots the ball with excellent accuracy to get a GOAL for @Kerry_Official v @TyroneGAALive in the Semi-Final of the Allianz Football League #GAANOW pic.twitter.com/aBTMkN5yok
— The GAA (@officialgaa) June 12, 2021
The poor u16 goalkeepers can barely touch the crossbar with their fingers, so it’s a genuine option as a scoring opportunity. However, to do it at senior level is a ballsy move, but at senior inter-county level in division one… well, that’s just special.
Kerry dismantled Tyrone at the weekend, in a game that was reminiscent of an underage match in many ways, not least because the first half looked as though it was men against boys. The Kingdom’s forwards cut through the Red Hands’ defence like it was non-existent and hit goal after goal after goal.
When Niall Morgan’s kick out was intercepted by a Kerry defender and flicked on to Gavin White, the Edendork goalie knew he was off his line and started to back track in. However, with White being over 45m out, the danger surely wasn’t imminent?
Wrong – the Dr Crokes man saw his chance, and was surely filled with all the excitement of possibility and opportunity, but remained calm and calculated before sending in the inch-perfect lob, directly over Morgan’s head and into the back of the Tyrone net.
Xabi Alonso would have been proud of that effort although as we all know, he’s a staunch Meath man.
Speaking on The Sunday League show, Tyrone legend Sean Cavanagh could only sit back and confess that “it was a sensational score”. Kerry won the game 6-15 to 1-14 and they really look like the only team that will cause Dublin serious problems this year.
