When matches are tentative affairs, they tend come down to a number of moments, generally during the second half. So, when Armagh got the pressure cooker really hissing, Kerry reverted to their system.
Whereas that included a really solid defensive structure – which we don’t always associate with Kerry – closing space, making an impressive number of tackles and looking quite comfortable, their attacking system and structure malfunctioned to a massive extent.
The over-reliance on getting the ball into David Clifford, who was a little off-form, became evident, as they looked pretty toothless outside of that.
I don’t know whether the months and months of going from club to county and back again have had the effect of blunting him but we didn’t even see that snap of anger or temper at the frustration he must have been experiencing on Saturday.
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Barry McCambridge did a good job but Clifford is naturally an aggressive player and yet, there was none of that edge in the tackle or anything.
When you’re carrying the club and then under pressure to get the county’s national league campaign up and running, when you’re always the go-to man, as inevitably a player of his quality will be, it may not blow the fuses but it wears down the engine.
Kerry may need to start looking at a new way of managing him and getting more from others.
For the first 35 minutes, they had been going so well. There was a spark to Seán O’Shea that we hadn’t seen in a fair while. All forwards scored apart from Paul Geaney.
But from the time Paul Murphy scored his goal in the 46th minute, Kerry managed only three more points until the end of normal time.
By the end of the second half, there was only going to be one winner. You could see from the body language and the lack of ideas that Kerry exhibited towards the end of normal time that it was going to take more than tweaks in the dressingroom to get their attack back on track.
The other thing was that they didn’t have the depth on the bench that Armagh had. Soupy Campbell came on and kicked two points, Ross McQuillan came, kicked a point but also had a massive influence in the middle of the park. Jarly Óg Burns came on and kicked a great point.
Cillian Burke and Dylan Geaney were introduced by Kerry and did kick a point each but had nowhere near the same influence around the field.
There was another factor, acknowledged by both managers, Kieran McGeeney and Jack O’Connor. Armagh supporters appeared to me to outnumber Kerry’s by about 10:1. Everything was going Armagh’s way because they are a team that gets lifted by the crowd, as opposed to stifled. Like Mayo, another well supported team, they feed off the atmosphere.
For Donegal, Sunday will leave a big sense of ‘what if’: Paddy McBrearty going off and the various wides. They really struggled to penetrate to the same extent that they did in the first half.
They were 10 from 14 up to half-time and then five from 14 afterwards. Galway’s defensive line pushed slightly higher and functioned that little bit better. They sagged off to the top of their D in the first half and allowed a lot of space to Michael Langan and Ciarán Thompson. Caolan McGonigle and Patrick McBrearty also kicked points from range.
That higher engagement was very effective for Galway and then you had really strong performances from Liam Silke and Dylan McHugh.
Donegal built their year on getting scores from a wide variety of players around the pitch and it’s a huge strength but you need to be getting scores consistently because they are fuel for the high-octane energy of their game.
Patrick McBrearty kicked a free in the 47th minute and Donegal got one more score in the nearly 20 minutes that remained and that was an absolute raker of a score from Langan – the type you can’t realistically depend on.
In the absence of scores, they began to look lethargic.
It would be surprising if the team and management didn’t see it as a lost opportunity. They had a semi-final against Galway and the day before, Armagh beat Kerry.
They would have been looking at that and saying – not out loud! – among themselves, “this is a team we’ve beaten in two other finals already this year”. It had to be seen as a great chance, especially having got it so right for so long.
And it wouldn’t have taken much to score those couple of points. But I expect them to come back. They will evolve and get better. Greater depth on the bench is also needed so Jim will be looking for a few young players to add to the panel.
It’s tough for them because they ticked a number of boxes. They were getting scores for a lot of the match; they marked the key Galway men very effectively – Brendan McCole did a great job on Comer, who didn’t score.
Shane Walsh got one from play and although Rob Finnerty did some damage, Donegal would have been pleased with that.
It may be that Galway’s key players have changed as Pádraic Joyce’s team evolves and players like Silke, McHugh and John Maher rise in influence but that’s for next week.
