In the recent history of All-Ireland football finals, there has never been an individual shoot-out of this calibre quite like it. Not in the end-to-end way that it evolved for so long.
avid Clifford and Shane Walsh, two rare talents not just for this but for any era, going head-to-head and carrying the weight of expectation of their colleagues and counties upon them. One outrageous trick bested by another.
In the end Clifford came away with the only prize that really mattered, a 38th All-Ireland title for Kerry. But Walsh’s magic will live long in the memory, forever really.
How he gave Galway direction and momentum while at the same time almost paralysing Kerry with fear through his searing pace and movement, not to mention his striking ability.
Croke Park on this day has seen individual displays like them before, Kerry’s Maurice Fitzgerald, a guest of honour beforehand in celebration of their win 1997 win, and Pádraic Joyce, the Galway manager, four years later.
Colm Cooper’s 1-5 for Kerry against Mayo in 2004, Seán Cavanagh’s 0-5 for Tyrone against Kerry in an epic 2008 decider and then the quartet of Dublin and Kerry players who each struck four points from play in the 2019 replay, a game of the highest quality.
But Walsh and Clifford was different because there was the addition of pressurised frees and placed balls threaded through a game on such a knife edge until Kerry broke free near the end.
Left and right, from distance, acute angles, bodies in front of them – it didn’t matter. They found a pocket of space and they pulled the trigger.
For a long time, everything else felt like a sideshow. Then other members of the respective casts stepped up, particularly Galway midfielder Cillian McDaid and Kerry defenders Graham O’Sullivan and Gavin White, White more so in the second half at a time when the Kerry bench was refuelling to allow that late surge.
It had plenty of passages of pause play too when both defences set themselves up in a way that forced the other to think their way through. And for a long time Galway had more composure and better execution to make more of those situations.
But there was always enough from Walsh, Clifford and McDaid to elevate this final to a much higher place in the bank of great finals and the balance between strategic and instinctive play was just right.
They were level nine times throughout. The only times there was any distance either way was at the start when Galway enjoyed three-point leads twice and at the end when Kerry scored the last four points to win by four.
“The best way of all” to win it, observed the Kerry manager Jack O’Connor afterwards.
For O’Connor there is the completion of the ‘Jack Slam,’ league and championship in the first year of his three terms in charge of Kerry. The self-christened ‘outsider’ who didn’t have a stellar inter-county playing career was already in the pantheon of great modern inter-county managers but this nudges him that bit further up the pecking order, as much in Kerry as beyond.
A fourth All-Ireland, essentially with three different teams and each one coming in response to Tyrone’s quartet of All-Ireland wins. The symmetry.
For Clifford, his status in the game continues to soar. This was some pressure for him to absorb, not just for this game but for the expectation that has been his constant companion now throughout his career. But he’s an All-Ireland winner now and he’ll be Footballer of the Year. He’s lived up to every bit of it.
Even his free to put them 0-17 to 0-16 ahead in the 67th minute, after referee Seán Hurson adjudged John Daly to have pulled in Killian Spillane’s arm as he went to go by him, was from a tight angle.
O’Connor went down to that corner afterwards to get a feel from the metrics involved, commending the nerve of his talisman.
It triggered the final push with Spillane and Gavin White fisting points before Seánie O’Shea converted a late free after Joe O’Connor, another substitute, had been fouled by Galway goalkeeper Conor Gleeson.
And only then could Kerry breathe that relief and feel the burden of the last eight years, and for these players the last four years, lift.
They had been edgy and unsettled in the opening exchanges despite putting significant pressure on the Galway kick-out that they weren’t able to punish on the scoreboard, seven wides in the first half to Galway’s flawless return.
Not unexpectedly, they launched some early missiles down on top of the Galway full-back line. But when Liam Silke broke forward, forcing O’Shea to block and concede an early ’45 which Walsh converted, it was a sign of some of the precision build-up that Galway would put together, reinforced when John Daly put in Johnny Heaney for a point, deflected over by Stephen O’Brien who had to scramble back hard. Kerry were on the back foot.
It took Clifford to earth them with a mark, provided by Graham O’Sullivan who teed up all three Kerry marks in the half, another for Clifford from a spectacular catch and one for Paul Geaney. On top of that there was O’Sullivan’s own point and a further assist for Diarmuid O’Connor in the second half with so much good defensive work in the company of Rob Finnerty.
But Walsh’s movement compounded Kerry anxiety and they got 0-5 to 0-2 ahead before Kerry found some composure, drawing level by the 20th minute, 0-5 each. But there was little respite and each time Kerry thought they had found a groove, Galway lifted them out of it.
Just before the break McDaid, who had not been in it much up to then, served notice of what was to come from him when he dovetailed with Finnerty from a clever tap-down off a kick-out by Patrick Kelly to land his first point and an 0-8 to 0-7 lead that energised the Galway crowd as they raced off at the break.
All this despite a subdued display from Damien Comer who was never really able to find a way into the game with Jason Foley on his shoulder.
The Kerry management made some big decisions at half-time, whipping off their two most experienced players, David Moran and Geaney. Geaney had snatched a few shots while Moran was labouring somewhat, O’Connor confirming that he had been ill the previous week.
His absence allowed O’Connor to flourish more in the middle while Spillane also made an impact, scoring two points and winning two frees that were converted. But Galway pressed on and everything Kerry threw at them, they found a response to.
Two of Walsh’s points in the third quarter in the Davin End were sublime – weren’t they all – the second putting them 0-12 to 0-11 clear after he turned a helpless Tom O’Sullivan inside out.
They pushed on 0-16 to 0-14 clear on 47 minutes but the measure of Kerry was really the reaction over the next 14 minutes as they forged two clear themselves, a four-point swing.
A Hawk-Eye intervention for an O’Sullivan shot prevented the gap stretching to three before White’s perfect shoulder on a flying McDaid was adjudged to have been a free which Walsh converted, Galway’s first score in almost 15 minutes, another example of the lack of clarity around this type of challenge.
They got level through McDaid after Comer claimed a kick-out but by then Kerry had fresh legs everywhere and through the Spillanes, Micheál Burns and, Paul Murphy they carried it home.
Given where Galway were on this very weekend last year, nursing a five-point Connacht final loss to Mayo, it’s quite the transformation under Joyce and their future is bright.
For Kerry, no goals has been a mantra and to concede just three in 13 league and championship games has taken parsimony of champions to a new level.
But most of all there is relief that they survived another searching mental test, the kind that erodes the fragility of the recent past.
Scorers – Kerry: D Clifford 0-8 (3fs, 2m); S O’Shea 0-3 (3fs); P Clifford, K Spillane 0-2 each; G White, G O’Sullivan, S O’Brien, D O’Connor, P Geaney (m) all 0-1 each. Galway: S Walsh 0-9 (4fs, 1 ’45); C McDaid 0-4; K Molloy, J Glynn, J Heaney all 0-1 each.
Kerry – S Ryan; T O’Sullivan, J Foley, G O’Sullivan; B Ó Beaglaoich, T Morley, G White; D Moran, J Barry; D O’Connor, S O’Shea, S O’Brien; P Clifford, D Clifford, P Geaney. Subs: K Spillane for Geaney (h-t), A Spillane for Moran (h-t), M Burns for O’Brien (63), P Murphy for Ó Beaglaoich (63), J O’Connor for P Clifford (72).
Galway – C Gleeson; K Molloy, S Kelly, J Glynn; D McHugh, L Silke, J Daly; P Conroy, C McDaid; P Kelly, M Tierney, J Heaney; R Finnerty, D Comer, S Walsh. Subs: F Ó Laoi for Finnerty (46), C Sweeney for Conroy (58), E Finnerty for Heaney (63), N Daly for Tierney 74).
Ref – S Hurson (Tyrone)
