Jonny Cooper couldn’t even lay a glove on him.
Skerries Harps almost pulled off the shock of the Dublin Senior Football Championship at the weekend. The 13/1 shots were leading Na Fianna by six points early in the second half only to be pegged back for a draw by a late charge from the 1/8 favourites in Parnell Park.
Skerries went down but only after one hell of a fight.
With this a straight shoot-out for a spot in the quarter finals, the stakes were set. And the underdogs began like they meant to go on, like a house on fire. Stephen Smith was burning up.
Every defender has a plan until a forward spins them around and leaves them on the ground with a dummy and Stephen Smith had the Na Fianna back-men tripping over themselves from the first minute.
By the hour’s end, he’d lined up and took out every second member of the Na Fianna defence with one of his deceptive masterpieces. And then he had the goods and composure to finish them off too.
Skerries’ plan looked fairly obvious and they got to work on it right from from the throw-in. They won that and sent a ball into the space for their jinky corner forward to gallop.
With space he’s dangerous.
He steadied himself in the acres he’d found, sold his corner back down the river before swinging a curler off the left, despite Jonny Cooper’s attempted block.
So Cooper tried to get a bit closer the next time. After seeing Smith’s golden gun of a left minutes earlier, Cooper tried to send him down that way again before smothering him. Good defending, you’d think.
But like Riyad Mahrez in a Leicester jersey and Arjen Robben in his pomp, Smith went the other way. Even better than Robben and Mahrez, he showed he has a right foot too as he put to umpires to work again despite being pushed when kicking.
And minutes later, the schemer’s goose-step had Cooper back-tracking to nowhere again. In fairness, how could anybody defend against that?
By this stage, the Na Fianna defenders must have been wondering if Smith actually had a bad foot at all.
The fact that Jonny Cooper ended his evening with a red card after two yellows shows the extent of the torment this man created.
He went onto score 1-7, his rasper of a goal from 2.30 in the video below from Dubs TV.
Watch the full match highlights from @clgNaFianna against @SkerriesHarps in the 3rd round of the Dublin Senior 1 Football Championship! 🏐 #DSFC1https://t.co/WVWgxQMfcR
— Dublin GAA (@DubGAAOfficial) September 18, 2018
This is a man who won an All-Ireland under-21 with the Dubs in 2017 as a sub. He comes from a good football clan with his brothers Jack and Eoin two of Skerries’ leading lights also.
The Harps’ manager Ciaran Roche has a gem on his hands and with the Na Fianna defenders probably still having nightmares, this man is giving Jim Gavin plenty to think about too.
