Kilmacud Crokes made to sweat by Kerins O’Rahillys before sealing final spot

Kilmacud Crokes 1-14 Kerins O’Rahillys 0-14

The ghosts of last February haunted Kilmacud in the closing moments of Sunday’s All-Ireland club football semi-final at Croke Park. A match that the Dublin champions appeared to have stitched up, came close to unravelling in injury-time and it took an alert catch in front of his own goal by full forward Dara Mullin to prevent a fisted contact by David Moran from flying into the net.

At that stage the Dublin champions’ lead had been halved from six to three and manager Robbie Brennan looked like a man who’d had a near-death experience after the match when reflecting on that late scare.

“It’s the same thing every time – you’re nearly expecting it to go in at this stage. Maybe that’s a positive, that it didn’t go in. No, it’s worrying. To allow ourselves be in that position was the most disappointing aspect. We were in control, took the foot off.

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“To be fair to O’Rahillys, they came back into it. They’re a good team. Plenty to work on.”

Until the fraught finale, Crokes had looked comfortable. Although the Kerry champions had also finished the first half strongly – five of their 14 points came in injury-time at the end of either half – a strong third quarter had left the Dublin club ahead by double scores, 1-11 to 0-7, and apparently only needing to manage the match to its conclusion.

They still led by six points when the hour was up but O’Rahillys staged a big comeback. Within a few minutes they managed to get within touching distance with three points from Jack and replacement Gearóid, Savage.

It was fitting that Moran nearly completed what would have been a miraculous recovery. He had been the dominant figure at centrefield even though Crokes frequently competed with him to break ball around the middle and disrupt his influence.

“Tell me if there is a better midfielder in Kerry,” said his manager, William Harmon. “He’s a phenomenal man, a phenomenal person, a phenomenal player. Today out there ... I think some of the fielding was top of the range stuff and I think he gave a real exhibition of high-fielding and catching. He deserves that because he’s put in a massive effort.”

Brennan reflected on the challenge. “We haven’t come up against that – that’s frightening size. The lads are just scary and add in the quality of football they have, so we were just working on stuff to try and disrupt David ... and stand in front of him from behind or the side but he’s just – no wonder, three All-Irelands in three different decades for one of the greatest counties ever so it’s not a surprise and we certainly didn’t win that battle, that’s for sure.”

Overall though the Dubliners played a patient game, defending very well against the towering presence of Tommy Walsh at full forward and the danger of his attacking colleagues, Jack Savage, Barry John Keane and Conor Hayes. Walsh wasn’t terribly well supplied and also found Theo Clancy a dogged marker.

[ Paul Mannion back in light training with Kilmacud Crokes after ankle surgery ]

The rest of the defence also played well. Dan O’Brien and Michael Mullin gave little away, wing back Aidan Jones got forward for two points and Rory O’Carroll played with his usual composure, offering himself as an outlet and minding possession carefully.

His decision making remains excellent and one perfect ball into Cian O’Connor might have yielded more had the latter not been hauled back by Con Barrett’s jersey tug.

Shane Walsh – first noticed in action, making a perfect tackle in his own full-back line in the third minute – kicked the free.

It should be noted that when it came to frees, O’Rahillys were more sinned against than sinning – by rough estimation, getting fouled about four times more often. Brennan will want to look at the discipline area, as on a couple of occasions, free kicks were brought forward by needless backchat to referee Niall Cullen.

If the two-point lead at the break was underwhelming from Kilmacud’s perspective, Savage kicked a free on the resumption to reduce the margin to the minimum although Jones restored the two-point lead.

Television Man of the Match, Hugh Kenny then broke the whole match apart. In less than a minute he had scored a goal, punishing a lapse by goalkeeper Shane Foley, which allowed him to seize possession and find an angle from which to score the only goal.

Immediately afterwards he kicked a point and the margin had increased sixfold in five minutes.

Harmon said that the goal had been crucial in his team’s downfall.

“Yeah, I think that goal and I can’t remember it but it came out of nowhere and it was vitally important. It came at a vital stage and it seemed to act as a bit of a buffer and we were a bit helter-skelter for a few minutes.

“We composed ourselves for the last quarter but it was probably just too little, too late.”

Even in the final quarter, the six-point lead hardly budged. Replacement Luke Ward had the chance of a decisive goal in the 56th minute after a sweeping counter-attack saw Walsh weaving in on goal and delivering the final pass but the replacement stepped in and his shot was blocked.

It didn’t appear to matter at the time but when a few minutes later Jack Savage stood over a free, which he was about to lob into the goalmouth, thoughts on the matter had changed.

KILMACUD CROKES: C Ferris; M Mullin, T Clancy, D O’Brien; A McGowan, R O’Carroll, A Jones (0-2); B Shovlin, C Dias (0-1); C O’Connor (0-1), S Cunningham (capt; 0-2), S Horan (0-1); H Kenny (1-2), D Mullin (0-2), S Walsh (0-2, 0-1f).

Subs: T Fox (0-1) for Horan (43 mins), C O’Shea for McGowan (46 mins), C Casey for Shovlin (46 mins), L Ward for O’Connor (53 mins), P Purcell for Cunningham (60 mins),

KERINS O’RAHILLYS: S Foley; R O’Callaghan, C Coffey D McElligott; C Barrett, K Mullins, P Neenan; D Moran, T Hoare; C Sayers, J Savage (0-7, 0-6f), G O’Brien (0-1); C Hayes (0-2), T Walsh (0-1), BJ Keane (0-2).

Subs: D O’Sullivan for Barrett (35 mins), B Hanafin for McElliggott (41 mins), D O’Connor for Hoare (46 mins), R Carroll for Sayers (56 mins), G Savage (0-1) for Hayes (61 mins),

Referee: Niall Cullen (Erne Gaels, Fermanagh).