Kerry v Tyrone

[EC Unique]

Tyrone are still way ahead of Armagh who in turn are miles ahead of Derry.

I wouldn't say that, Tyrone only managed to get past Armagh because of our inept sideline and sh*t decision making.

Roscommon results?

[seafoid]

"This was as good as an All-Ireland"

sure it was

[orangeman]

Galvin's 'rap' puts rhythm back in kerry

By Billy Keane
Monday July 23 2012

This was as good as an All-Ireland. Kerry have finally quelled the 10-year Tyrone rebellion with a 10-point win. Three defeats in a row to Tyrone cut deep -- a blot on an almost perfect career copybook.

The boys of the old brigade never gave up. Aidan O'Mahony and Tomas O Se played as if their years of toil were no more than a scroll back through an online calendar. Marc O Se of the mazy ways is the best defender in Ireland.

Eoin Brosnan was clever and cool. Declan O'Sullivan kicked points while he was hanging off the side of his marker like a Cossack trick rider.

Kieran Donaghy is back and in his glorious pomp.

Killian Young and Donnacha Walsh served shorter sentences in the Tyrone jail and they, too, gave their all.

And the Gooch would find space for a Giant Sequoia in a box of matches.

It is, indeed, a tribute to Tyrone that this win means so much to us. Three times they plundered the family silver from our grasp and on each occasion they were the better team.

Alas, a few of their number let the county down. There were bad tackles from both sides, but it was persistent from Tyrone.

However, then you had Eoin Mulligan, scorer of the wonder-goal that changed a county's destiny. He wore a Kerry jersey and mixed with the crowd after the game.

This is the Tyrone we will focus on, the Tyrone of Peter Canavan, Sean Cavanagh, Stephen O'Neill and Brian Dooher. Footballing immortals all.

Mickey Harte looked tired and a little frail as he offered his congratulations to the Kerry team.

He will be back and we wish him well.

No doubt Mickey will spend the rest of the summer minding his family and maybe taking a few sessions with the U-12s.

Like most of us, he is hopelessly in thrall to the holy game of Gaelic football.

Yes, on days like this, it is a holy game and the Kerry goal was fashioned from a mesmeric combination of skill, brains, speed and guile.

When we attack all out, with no feck-acting, football becomes a great game again.

Kerry brought in pace and fresh faces.

We now have a bench that can change games, like Darran O'Sullivan did against Westmeath when he kept us in the championship

New boy Shane Enright messed up with his first touch, but he wasn't going to look back and he marked the north Kerry way, on the shoulder, hard and fast.

James O'Donoghue has speed and balance. He is a Kerry footballer to his very core.

The old ghosts who haunt this stadium must have leapt for joy at the sight of the high fielding from Bryan Sheehan and Anthony Maher.

They not only jumped over their opponents, but through them as well, a la Darragh O Se.

Goalkeeper Brendan Kealy steered the ball to his outside men with a perfect joystick. I'd hate to have to take him on at Playstation.

tackle

Paul Galvin was a DJ on Radio Kerry the night before the game and he set the tone with his Man of the Match rap. Galvin won every breaking ball and he threw himself headlong into every tackle.

This was the winning of it.

And what about Jack O'Connor? Last week the manager was only a wave of a flag from the sack. He got all the calls right this time.

Jack will tell his boys we've won nothing yet, but this was stand-alone history. Now he can face Mickey Harte as an equal.Eamon Fitzmaurice and Diarmuid Murphy are his two sound lieutenants. Both are football past pupils and close friends.

Ger O'Keeffe is the man from the Golden Years who has been with Jack from the start.

His Kerry players seethed at the suggestion we were scared of the north. Our integrity as a county and our courage as a race of people was put into question.

Oh but the critics must feel very silly, indeed, this morning.

Not one Kerry man stood back. Not one Kerry man gave in.

The Emperor wears clothes. The Emperor wears green and gold.

- Billy Keane

Irish Independent

Sure thing Billy.

[Rois]

They were well beaten in all 3 games and the referee has had very little to do with it. Yes he made a mistake yesterday but as has been said he gave Tyrone more frees than Kerry so he clearly wasn't biased he just made a mistake!

Er - don't get your logic there - Kerry may have fouled four times more than Tyrone but the ref ignored half of them - still leaves room for bias and having Kerry with a higher foul count.  Of course I'm not saying that was the case, just pointing out that your reasoning seems wrong to me.

Had Kerry played a Tyrone team that resembled the '03, '05 and '08 team then the performances could be compared, but for Tyrone (unlike Kerry), it was apples and oranges.  We're not as good as we were because we've lost some fantastic players - but those players still remain unbeaten by Kerry.  Had they played last year, the result may have been the same as Saturday's but it would have resulted in a switch in bragging rights as certain Tyrone players from the old vintage would have been on the pitch.  I'm glad they weren't to be honest!

Kerry celebrations seemed a bit silly to me - perhaps postpone until the All Ireland final is won (a real possibility). 

[blewuporstuffed]

Alas, a few of their number let the county down. There were bad tackles from both sides, but it was persistent from Tyrone

Jesus what game was he at?
the kerry loving media go into overdrive again

[eviemonkey]

How is it that very few in the media seem prepared to take Kerry to task for their actions?

Kerry have a lot of heads in the media who are only too willing to propagate the 'Kerry are the Brazil of Gaelic Football' mantra.

Billy Keane's misty-eyed homage ("The Emperor wears green and gold") in today's Independent is a classic example of blissfully ignoring some of the darker arts of Kerry's play last Saturday which you highlighted. Then you have Spillane on the Sunday Game and we all know what to expect from Pat at this stage. The sports editor of the Kerry Exami...sorry the Irish Examiner is from Kerry and has a couple of willing foot soldiers on the staff to toe the party line. Look at the reaction of Tony Leen and John Fogarty yesterday on Twitter when Ewan MacKenna dared to highlight some of the systematic fouling Kerry did in the second half.

Over in the Irish Times you have Daragh O'Se and John O'Keeffe as the main football columnists and so it goes. Daragh's column are an enjoyable read for the most part but he tends to be selective of what he wants to highlight. He wrote a lengthy piece last week on Cork's new-found cynical streak but naturally enough would be slow to repeat any similar accusations against his own county. It is all fairly harmless stuff but sure who knows if you throw enough muck out there it may influence a refereeing decision somewhere down the line.

Meanwhile a lot of the other journalists, particularly on RTE who cover the GAA tend to be lazy or just bad at what they do and generally revert to cliched analysis as their default mode. Certain counties are labelled with various characteristics and this line of thinking is rehashed at every opportunity. Kerry play traditional clean football, Cork are big and strong, Kildare are fit but don't have scoring forwards, and so forth. It is an easy way to make a living and fair play to them for getting away with it. There are notable exceptions of course and they are some really good GAA journalists out there but they are in the minority.

[J OGorman]

Ref wise: Coldrick or whoever reffed this match was in for a rough ride. Sat's match was no different to a club championship match. The history that precedes the match, the media build up, the unsettled scores etc. Tyrone v Kerry in the championship, all the 'team of the decade' stuff, bragging rights etc etc...,
The fans of both counties would have looked forward to it nervously. Most of neutrals would be taking a ringside seat and waiting for the fireworks. Look its grand for a manager to come out after a game and have a go at the ref, fair enough. But the same manager and his players also have to take responsibility. You cant expect certain players to play over the edge and not get yellow carded. Its also hard to expect certain sections of the crowd not to respond to this either...its a 2 way street.

[Applesisapples]

As a neutral watching this match on TV3 I would make the following observations. Both sets of players involved themselves in unnecessary baiting of opponents. Donaghy was by far the biggest culprit but McMenamin was a close second. Kerry out muscled Tyrone and although I thought Coldrick was a home town official he did not beat Tyrone. He sent McGuigan off on the advice of the linesman who had a limited view of what happened. I have to say that it looked like a straight red on TV in real time so I can understand why it was produced. You have to say McGuigan shouldn't have got involved though. Towards the end the Kerry number 22 was involved in a striking incident which got him only a yellow...inconsistency Mr Coldrick. And by the by Benny Coulters dig at Mark McHugh yesterday was also worse yet Mr Inconsistency McQuillan gave yellow. That said Kerry looked awesome they have adopted the best of Northern football and have some tidy footballers to boot. It must be the Tyroneman in Donaghy though he is as big a pr**k on the park as Ricey.

[Hardy]

Coldrick deserves some criticism for poor decision-making, but within the confines of fair comment, taking into account the constraints of the job, etc. However, few of the partisans here seems prepared to dish out the more severe criticism due to the majority of players on both sides actively setting out to make his job next to impossible by trying to con him and cheat each other, diving, mouthing, getting in his face at every opportunity and generally behaving like a crowd of boozed-up teenagers outside the chipper on a Saturday night. The problem with that game was not the behaviour of the referee but that of the players.

[LeoMc]

Coldrick deserves some criticism for poor decision-making, but within the confines of fair comment, taking into account the constraints of the job, etc. However, few of the partisans here seems prepared to dish out the more severe criticism due to the majority of players on both sides actively setting out to make his job next to impossible by trying to con him and cheat each other, diving, mouthing, getting in his face at every opportunity and generally behaving like a crowd of boozed-up teenagers outside the chipper on a Saturday night. The problem with that game was not the behaviour of the referee but that of the players.

whaat he said.
I am not sure there is any Ref could referee that game where both sets of players are out to 'push the envelope'

[Applesisapples]

Coldrick deserves some criticism for poor decision-making, but within the confines of fair comment, taking into account the constraints of the job, etc. However, few of the partisans here seems prepared to dish out the more severe criticism due to the majority of players on both sides actively setting out to make his job next to impossible by trying to con him and cheat each other, diving, mouthing, getting in his face at every opportunity and generally behaving like a crowd of boozed-up teenagers outside the chipper on a Saturday night. The problem with that game was not the behaviour of the referee but that of the players.

A lot of truth in what you say, as a neutral though I did think the crowd swayed him. He is a better Ref than he showed on Saturday, but I accept that the players did make it hard.

[Main Street]

They were well beaten in all 3 games and the referee has had very little to do with it. Yes he made a mistake yesterday but as has been said he gave Tyrone more frees than Kerry so he clearly wasn't biased he just made a mistake!

Er - don't get your logic there - Kerry may have fouled four times more than Tyrone but the ref ignored half of them - still leaves room for bias and having Kerry with a higher foul count.  Of course I'm not saying that was the case, just pointing out that your reasoning seems wrong to me.

Had Kerry played a Tyrone team that resembled the '03, '05 and '08 team then the performances could be compared, but for Tyrone (unlike Kerry), it was apples and oranges.  We're not as good as we were because we've lost some fantastic players - but those players still remain unbeaten by Kerry.  Had they played last year, the result may have been the same as Saturday's but it would have resulted in a switch in bragging rights as certain Tyrone players from the old vintage would have been on the pitch.  I'm glad they weren't to be honest!

Kerry celebrations seemed a bit silly to me - perhaps postpone until the All Ireland final is won (a real possibility). 

Kerry were deprived of 2 All-Irelands by Tyrone (possibly3), but still managed to win 4 others. Tyrone have had a great decade, but to Kerry a great decade would have been winning 7 of them.
They didn't beat the great Tyrone team yesterday, just the remnants of one but one with more of the cynical remnants. Hard to credit some of the Tyrone ott sensitivity about meeting a proud team that were not going to submit on their home ground.

What was the difference with the effective way Tyrone handled the high ball tactic to Donaghy way back in 2008, compared to yesterday?

[Main Street]

Coldrick deserves some criticism for poor decision-making, but within the confines of fair comment, taking into account the constraints of the job, etc. However, few of the partisans here seems prepared to dish out the more severe criticism due to the majority of players on both sides actively setting out to make his job next to impossible by trying to con him and cheat each other, diving, mouthing, getting in his face at every opportunity and generally behaving like a crowd of boozed-up teenagers outside the chipper on a Saturday night. The problem with that game was not the behaviour of the referee but that of the players.

I'd agree with the gist of that. I though Coldrick did well in the 1st half  to take the steam out the game when it was for sure that the tempers were going to go into overdrive.

[Donnellys Hollow]

Coldrick deserves some criticism for poor decision-making, but within the confines of fair comment, taking into account the constraints of the job, etc. However, few of the partisans here seems prepared to dish out the more severe criticism due to the majority of players on both sides actively setting out to make his job next to impossible by trying to con him and cheat each other, diving, mouthing, getting in his face at every opportunity and generally behaving like a crowd of boozed-up teenagers outside the chipper on a Saturday night. The problem with that game was not the behaviour of the referee but that of the players.

Well said Hardy. People are too quick to slate referees and absolve the players on the field for their behaviour. Players need to take responsibility for their own actions. McGuigan's sending off was harsh but what was he playing at charging into O'Sullivan anyway? Tyrone badly needed scores at that stage and any flashpoints were just going to waste time and play into Kerry's hands. Such an experienced player should have had more cop on. He should have been pulling Tyrone players out of any messing and trying to refocus them to get up the field and launch a comeback.

Footballers around the country could learn a lot from their hurling counterparts. Referees in hurling do let a lot go but it's a rarity to see a hurler going down easily and trying to con a referee. There were players on both sides last Saturday who are model sportsmen and are a credit to their respective counties. I'm thinking of the likes of Marc Ó Sé and Steven O'Neill. Guys who just go out and get on with the game. No diving, no mouthing and no whinging when someone else gives them hard belt. It's a pity some of their colleagues don't follow their example and not engage in some of the pointless unsporting behaviour that only serves to fire up their opponents. Why for example did Conor Gormley feel the need to drive the ball into Tomás Ó Sé's ribs after the Tyrone goal? If players are going to engage in that sort of nonsense then don't blame the referee when the inevitable flashpoints and sendings off occur.

[ballymac]

Congratulations to Kerry they beat a Tyrone team in transition. It meant more to them and this was evident by post match interviews and celebrations during and immediately after the game. Tyrone have been held in high regard over the last few years when in reality they were in the chasing pack. Yes they are probably second best team in Ulster (Armagh and Derry are as far behind them as Tyrone are from Kerry) with Down comparable. But the pecking order is Donegal Dublin and Cork then Kerry then a few others but none of which hold a significant threat.

Gooch, Donaghy, Galvin, O Sullivan x 2 in the forward line and add in an o Se or two and thats no bad team. All the talk about refs dirty tactics etc is only smoke and mirrors. The fact is Tyrone are nowhere near the AI winning team they had. The FB and FF ARE STILL TEENAGERS so that 's something to take out of the game. I just hope that these other players see an opportunity to make it at senior level. Tyrone have a large number of talented players but they need to show the grit and determination to succeed at senior level. Tyrone people might now take time to appreciate the players that they had and the team that provided AI success.

I wish Kerry all the best and hope Tyrone can regroup and introduce at least 12 new players and that a few others will stay injury free next year.