Sean O’Shea was “more than entitled to go for that ball” says Oisin McConville

"He didn’t let it deter him.”

Sean O'Shea was undoubtedly the hero yesterday with his last second winner to ensure Kerry will be in the All-Ireland final. However, in the first half,, O'Shea had missed a penalty that would have seen The Kingdom go nine points clear at the time. Dublin's keeper Evan Comerford need attention from the physio before the penalty was took which meant there was a long wait before the ball was kicked. Then as Comerford saved it, the ball spilled loose for just a second and O'Shea sprinted in to try and get a toe on the rebound but ended up hurting Comerford in the process. A bit chaos broke, and there were some fears that the Kerry forward would be shown a red card. In the end he was deemed to have gotten enough of the ball, and The Sunday Game panelist Oisin McConville believes he was right to go for it.

"When he went in for the rebound, he’s more than entitled to go for that ball. “In Evan Comerford’s case: football smarts. Staying down for as long as he did, taking that time off the clock. The other thing about the penalty situation was that it seemed to ignite a fire in Dublin.

"There was a little bit of handbags; nobody was contributing to a melee, or anything like that. Dublin got fired up and got into Kerry’s faces, and it took something like that. I felt Dublin were very, very flat early on in the game.” Donegal captain Michael Murphy was also on the show and was in full agreement with his fellow Ulster colleague. https://twitter.com/TheSundayGame/status/1546249094636658688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1546249094636658688%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the42.ie%2Fsean-o-shea-5813662-Jul2022%2F “As Oisin rightly points out, Kerry were on a roll”, said Murphy. “Nothing was going Dublin’s way, and it probably took something like that.

"The wait definitely doesn’t help, you’re sitting around with all kinds of things going through your head. All credit to Evan Comerford, he knew the rules, you could question the integrity of [the rules] but he waited as much time as he could. Dublin even got someone on the bench to warm up to delay it that little bit longer.

"Sean O’Shea won’t be happy with the penalty and the execution, but he didn’t let it deter him.” Looking ahead to the final on Sunday week, Murphy said, “Kerry will definitely be favourites but Galway have absolutely nothing to lose.”