Kerry have credentials. Serious credentials.
It’s sad that the All-Ireland champions have to prove their worth but given the campaign that’s been, we needed to see them up against it.
And Tyrone lent themselves as worthy adversaries in a tight, intense battle on a rain-soaked Croke Park. The sort of battle everyone should come through before they can waltz into a decider.
It was a drama-filled game – a great game believe it or not – and the talking points that surfaced showed just that.
Goal chances
Tyrone players will wake up on Monday morning and groan in agony.
Connor McAliskey blazed over in the first half when he was clean through with a spare man to his right.
Mark Bradley hit his effort way too close to Brendan Kealy in the second period and Tiernan McCann lost control of the ball as he stormed through the middle and ended up hacking wide.
In a game that was rarely separating the sides by more than one score, they would’ve proved crucial. Especially for a Tyrone team who would’ve suited defending the lead.
Late penalty shout
The penalty dispatched by Peter Harte, bang on.
The one Padraig McNulty was looking for? Come on.
The Tyrone player was booked for simulation and, although Maurice Deegan came in for criticism by some afterwards who suggested that the Red Hands are victims of their own reputation now, a penalty awarded against Kerry for that would’ve caused a much bigger uproar.
He was looking for it.
The black card
Ciaran Whelan got Joe Brolly’s back up afterwards by exclaiming that the black card should be gotten rid of. Its intentions are great. Its execution is shocking.
More and more, we are seeing referees cop out of black card offences by issuing a yellow but what is worse is when there’s obviously a degree of clamping down going on and black cards are handed out willy-nilly for actions that couldn’t be any less of a black card.
Just like that, players’ games are ended.
There was awful inconsistency with the black cards – and lack of – today and the decision to give Ronan McNamee the line when he clattered into Colm Cooper with his shoulder while the player was on the ball was truly bizarre.
No third man tackle. No deliberate trip. No deliberate pull-down. Just strange.
The Marc Ó Sé one was correct but both sides got away with a few later in the game.
Boos
Not the ones for Tiernan McCann. Oh no.
The ones for Kerry for when they refused to kick the ball down the throat of 14 Tyrone men inside their own 45′.
It is one of the most infuriating things about this year’s championship. When a team sets up defensively, their fans actually boo the opposition for not playing into their hands then.
Think about what you are doing.
Kerry
They were asked questions and they answered them.
They answered with vigour.
The Kingdom never let Tyrone ahead after they pulled in front with the seventh score of the game and, even against a sea of white jerseys, they kicked 18 scores in poor conditions.
Tyrone rallied at the worst possible time for Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s men, they bagged a goal, they pulled level inside the last 10 minutes and Kerry stood up and were counted. Every one of them.
Four unanswered points really flexed the muscles of the champions who showed no fear in whipping off their captain and deploying Paul Geaney, Barry John Keane, Darran O’Sullivan and Bryan Sheehan from the bench when it was needed.
The question marks of a bit of luck helping them against Donegal last year were buried as Fitzmaurice once again out-fought and out-thought their stubborn opposition.
This time, they did it even more convincingly.
