Mickey Harte’s gamble pays off as Derry outlast understrength Kerry

National Football League Division One: Derry 0-15 Kerry 2-8

Look at it this way. Derry put out a championship-strength team, fast-tracked the Glen players back into action, nearly piked away a six-point lead, surrendered half a dozen goal chances with a defensive meltdown in the final quarter, and beat Kerry away from home in the National League for just the second time in more than 30 years. Happy?

Or, look at it this way. Kerry put out a McGrath Cup strength team, without four or five of their first-choice forwards, including the greatest player of the age, were cleaned out at centre field for half-an-hour with an experimental pairing, butchered at least three clear goal scoring opportunities, played well for about 20 minutes, and lost a game that, in the end, they should have won. Happy?

In the league, no feeling is final, and contentment is the shallowest feeling of all. Everybody is suspicious of happiness. For Derry, though, not winning would have been more damaging than any game in January ought to be. By loading the team with 14 of the players that had started the All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry last July, Mickey Harte took a calculated gamble. How would it have felt if they had failed to beat half a Kerry team, when last summer they looked them in the eye in a titanic match, and walked out of Croke Park as their peers?

Does beating them by a point on Saturday night qualify as laying down a marker, in the grand tradition of the league? Not remotely. Mickey Harte was brought in to win the All-Ireland. That was the sugar-coating on the pill. For this group of Derry players, that is the target that will define them from now on. Serious contenders or something less?

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[ Mickey Harte and Jack O’Connor always knew how to get under each other’s skin. Now they meet again ]

Anyway, first things first. It was easy to deduce from Harte’s comments afterwards that his initial goal is to secure Derry’s status in Division One. This is their first campaign in the top flight since 2016, and in a cut-throat division nobody is above the threat of relegation. He mentioned the importance of reaching the gap week in the middle of February with some points on the board, and that has been achieved now.

Tyrone are the visitors to Celtic Park next Sunday and Harte’s presence in an Oak Leaf top will add another swirl of emotion to a fixture that never lacks for feeling. Harte might have seen Kerry in Tralee as a better bet.

The Ulster champions trailed for just two minutes on Saturday, but the final quarter turned into a desperate scramble. Having played with a stiff wind they led by 0-8 to 0-4 at half-time, which didn’t seem like much comfort in the conditions.

Derry had dominated Kerry’s kick-out, forcing Jack O’Connor to replace the debutant Sean O’Brien seven minutes before half-time. Just six days after he had carried Glen over the line in Croke Park, Conor Glass was an influential presence in the middle third, and elsewhere.

He kicked the game’s opening score with his first touch, and his centre field partner, Brendan Rogers, kicked Derry’s last score of the half, a towering shot with his left foot, that put them 0-8 to 0-4 in front.

[ Conor Glass is now one of the most influential, respected and feared footballers in the country ]

Kerry made two more substitutions at the break, one of which was enforced by an injury to Brian O’Beaglaioch, but the second half started much as the first half finished. Derry stretched their lead to six points with another free from Shane McGuigan and a terrific score from Gareth McKinless.

The tide turned when Ciaran McFaul was black-carded, seven minutes into the second half. By the time Derry were restored to 15 players their lead had been reduced to three points and Kerry had started to push up more aggressively on the Derry kick-out. Turnovers in the opposition half is the purest energy source and Kerry started to get something from that grid.

For Kerry’s first goal after 58 minutes, Rogers was mugged by Joe O’Connor inside his own half. The tackle seemed like a push in real-time, and TV replays didn’t contradict that first impression, but play continued. With the Derry goalie Odhran Lynch stranded outfield Conor Geaney finished expertly to an empty net from about 30 metres.

Derry responded strongly, kicking the next two points, but Kerry drew level with six minutes left when corner-back Dylan Casey finished a pass to the net from the other Kerry corner Graham O’Sullivan.

After that, all bets were off. McFaul and O’Sullivan exchanged points before McGuigan kicked the winner from a free in the third minute of stoppage time. For Mickey Harte, gamble landed.

Kerry: S Ryan; G O’Sullivan (0-1, mark), J Foley, D Casey (1-0); B O’Beaglaioch, T O’Sullivan, G White; J O’Connor, S O’Brien; D Moynihan (0-1), D Geaney (0-1), C Burke; K Spillane, S O’Shea (0-5, four frees,) M Burns.

Subs: B O’Sullivan for O’Brien (28 mins), P Murphy for O’Beaglaioch (half-time), C Geaney (1-0) for Burns (half-time), S O’Brien for Burke (44), D O’Connor for Spillane (48).

Derry: O Lynch; C McCluskey, C McKaigue (0-1), D Baker; C Doherty (0-1), G McKinless (0-1), C Doherty; C Glass (0-1), B Rogers (0-1); E Doherty, D Cassidy (0-1), C McFaul (0-1); N Loughlin, S McGuigan (0-7, six frees), P Cassidy.

Subs: N Toner (0-1) for P Cassidy (47 mins), C Murphy for Loughlin (60 mins).

Referee: J McQuillan (Cavan)

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