Enda McEvoy's TV verdict: If Clifford walked on sand he wouldn’t leave footprints
A supporter takes a video of the parade. Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
The great day has dawned and there are so many questions to be asked and answered. After such a gloriously expansive championship will two notably expansive teams (“It’s the right way to end the year,” Lee Keegan declares on RTÉ) provide a cracker, or, perversely and probably predictably, a damp squib?
Why do BBC Northern Ireland have an Irish female comedian you’ve never heard of, an English actor you’ve never heard of, Douglas Henshall (a Scottish actor you may or may not have heard of) and Martin Compston, the small guy from empanelled to give their thoughts on the match?
Also, Joanne Cantwell is resplendent in a blue gúna and heels, and quite right too for the day that’s in it, but has this consummate professional overlooked the fact that one of the teams will be wearing blue and that some internet conspiracy theorist with far too much time on his hands - granted, all internet conspiracy theorists have far too much time on their hands - will doubtless interpret this as a subtle nod in Kerry’s direction?
Even if the blue is really a nod to Joanne’s own county?
We need answers pronto. Important issues indeed. Talking of pronto, Kerry are all pronto. They hit the ground not so much running as galloping through the centre of the Donegal defence and open the scoring inside 11 seconds through Dylan Geaney.
David Clifford rattles off an early two-pointer.
“Ruthless efficiency from a genius at work,” Thomas Niblock swoons on BBC.
Soon the gap is four points.
On 11 minutes Clifford bags a second two-pointer. If the man walked on sand he wouldn’t leave footprints. Brendan McCole, panting in the number 13’s wake, narrowly avoids a card. Thomas gets existential. “The only thing worse than marking David Clifford in Croke Park is marking him on a yellow card,” he muses.
“That would be bad,” Mickey Harte, on co-comms beside him, deadpans in response.
How is Clifford getting on so much ball? How are a team managed by Jim McGuinness allowing him to do so? Midway through the half Michael Murphy, aiming unnecessarily high, contrives to put a free from in front of the Railway End posts against one of the uprights. Nobody in white and green has seen fit to follow in and Kerry come out with the ball.
The tone for Donegal’s afternoon has been set. An afternoon of continuous failure to get the small jobs done properly.
To be fair, their shooting is good. Their first wide doesn’t arrive until the half-hour mark. Then again, that’s more a function of the lack of opportunities they’ve been creating than of cold-eyed accuracy on their part.
It gets worse. The hooter sounds for the interval. Kerry, in possession, retain possession till they manipulate some space for their star man outside the 45-metre arc. Their star man does the rest with his third three-pointer.
What would have been a five-point deficit (acceptable from a Donegal perspective in view of the dominance of their opponents) is suddenly a seven-point deficit (highly disconcerting from a Donegal perspective).
They would have been fine with five points, Mickey avers, but seven points “throws a spanner in the works”. Donegal are reacting to everything, Conor McManus opines. “Kerry have set the agenda.” Look at the space Paudie Clifford has been getting, he adds.
Over on RTÉ, Tomás Ó Sé reckons that Donegal are going to need two-pointers and a goal. It could happen; this, Joanne points out, has been “the year of the big swings and the big comebacks in the second half”. Do Donegal have a John McGrath though?
Kerry win possession at the restart, which Donegal needed to do. Kerry score the first point of the new half, which Donegal needed to do. And win Shaun Patton’s kickout, which Donegal needed to do. And score the next point, which Donegal etc.
The Kingdom are leading by 0-20 to 0-14 when Darragh Maloney chimes in with a neat and apposite stat. The final score in last year’s final was 1-11 to 0-13. The positive effect the new rules are having is scarcely in need of mention any longer and no hindsight is required to see that their introduction marked a very good day for Kerry.
Not solely because they had the younger Clifford either; a county doesn’t win 38, going on 39, All-Irelands by being incapable of kicking scores from distance.
Which Donegal are. “They need a big score,” says Mickey, but no such deus ex machina is materialising nor looks likely to do so. Their raft of unforced errors prompts the thought that something went wrong in training in the previous fortnight. Were they overcooked? Undercooked? One session too many? One session too few?
Six minutes from the end, David Clifford, to a vast roar, makes the gap seven points. “New rules,” says Darragh, “but the more the game changes, the more it stays the same.”
Turns out that Kerry had a cause, Paudie C reveals to Damian Lawlor afterwards. Those questions asked after the Meath game by their own people. “That’s what hurt more than anything.” It’s not quite “everyone wrote us off” stuff but it’s near enough. Ya gotta have a cause, whether real or imagined.
Up pops Jack O’Connor to reflect on what a tough year it was. “A lot of adversity. A lot of injuries, we lost a lot of good men.”
Their focus never wavered, not even after Clifford ignited that bomb in first-half dead time.
“We said to each other in the dressing room that what happened Cork last weekend wasn’t gonna happen us.”
Ouch. Ah Jack, that was uncalled for.
And that’s that. Coruscating champions at the end of a coruscating championship and no questions left to be answered. Except perhaps by Joanne.
