Tadhg Morley doesn’t go half-hearted, he doesn’t know standing back.
He’s a defender first and foremost, but he’s a footballer too. If the ball is there to be won, the Templenoe man will not be hamstrung by his responsibilities. He will go for it and he will more often than not claim it first time.
If beaten to it though, we see a different side of the Kerry number three. Not a hope of him dropping the head, his day is only getting started. He’ll chase until his marker is under pressure and then when he’s under pressure, he’ll harass and he’ll harry too.
His latest task was Paul Mannion. The country’s in-form forward.
Morley was given a warning sign early on. He dropped and Mannion pointed off the right after just 15 seconds. Game on. One slip and you’re gone. The Kerryman didn’t take long however, to settle into the form he’s been showing all season.
It was as early as the tenth minute of the game when Morley let Mannion know he was in for a tougher test than most Sundays.
The Kilmacud Crokes forward took his eye off the ball and Morley was in like a flash. One all.
Morley wasn’t the only Templenoe man laying down markers, with Jonny Cooper feeling the full force of Adrian Spillane a couple of minutes earlier.
From then on, every Mannion possession came with an asterisk. His marker stuck to him like glue, there was little he could do.
“You just know what you’re getting from him, he’s just an honest, strong player and you’re getting nothing easy off him,” said Colm Parkinson of Kerry’s tenacious tackler on The GAA Hour podcast.
Nothing easy is right. Dublin’s marquee forward would go onto have only eight more possessions in the game, with Morley’s shadow making the rest of the Dublin team’s mind up for them. There’s no point in giving the ball to a man who’s being tightly sheriffed.
“I think he got into Mannion’s head so much that he just started taking pot-shots,” added Wooly.
“It’s a reflection of Morley’s performance that Mannion was subbed,” said Cian Ward.
“Even when Mannion was getting away from him, Morley stayed chasing him down hard and he constantly got back to put him under pressure,” he added.
“Mannion would have been feeling that pressure all along and he was back to the erratic Paul Mannion that we’ve seen over a number of years previous, skying and mishandling balls…Morley deserves huge credit.”
Having quietened McShane in the semi-final when he was threatening to go to town, Tadhg Morley is becoming the player Kerry can trust with the toughest of jobs.
You can watch Monday’s GAA Hour Show here.
