Kerry vs Down

[PAULD123]

Just back from Killarney. The Kerry fans near me agreed that Kerry looked like a better team but that Down had more chances and probably should have won the game for that reason alone. We so nearly could have had the winning goal at the end as it was cleared off the line. But on the whole the game was fairly low key and I have to say I felt that both teams played it with as much effort as they could while still realising it was a bit of a dead rubber.

The thing that worries me is that simply speaking, despite our tremedously skillful forwards, we just haven't been scoring enough. 14 today, 13 against Dublin, 15 against Cork, 16 against Mayo, 12 against Armagh, even 17 against Galway was nothing great. Only against Monaghan did we get a score (19) that could be expected to win most games. yet we are easily creating enough chances to score 19-20 points every game. If we can improve our conversion rate we can beat anyone. I think how the management address this issue will dictate out summer!

[Dubh driocht]

Long but good road home and a reasonable end to a good league campaign.
The Kerry people have great respect for Down and it showed when they came out of the blocks that they wanted to win this one.We feared Down were in for a tanking in the first ten as we were chasing shadows- couldn't win anything in midfield and Kalum lucky enough to escape a yellow ( or worse) for giving Star a double chop in the first minute . James and his three amigos have good brains and they steadied the ship- helped by Galvin, who was central to Kerry's choreography, going off after 20 with what looked like a hand injury. He was followed shortly afterwards by Kalum, who was on a yellow and could have been facing a straight red which would have ruled him out of the Athletic Grounds- that was the only conclusion for a strange decision. So for most of this match Down played against Kerry , in Killarney, with a midfield of James Colgan and Aidan Brannigan! Colgan is solid but slow, Brannigan is willing but limited- up against Eoin Brosnan , the impressive Anthony Maher and then Seamus Scanlon .Boy do we need Ambrose and if he's not fit to start , he may need to see some game time against Armagh.
It took a huge effort from the half-back line ( Mc Kernan was on O'Sullivan) and some gut-bustin runs from Benny Mc Ardle to restore order but Kerry's clever marking forced our defenders to shoot with unsurprising results. Unbelievably we should have been level or ahead by half time but found ourself 3 down due to silly mistakes and when O'Sullivan got the goal after the restart it looked like the stuffing was back on the menu. Once again we got back in the game, mainly due to my MOM Mark Poland and some good work by Lavery and Benny for Benny's first goal of the campaign. They were rocking and Eoin Mc Cartan unsettled them further but Kerry always had a bit extra even with Tom O Sullivan getting the line.
The positives were the performances of the ones I mentioned, another excellent display by Gerard Mc Cartan on an unusually quiet Gooch and the return of Dee Rafferty who, as always, got tore in. The areas for improvement are shooting ( or as the pundits now call it, shot selection), and the lack of midfield cover if we are asking Choc Brannigan to fill in there- also Danny and Marty were well marked and the latter only showed his mettle in the last 15 which was puzzling.
Hope the boys enjoyed their (quiet) night in Killarney- we certainly did but quiet it was not. Forward with confidence and a trip to Armagh will be a test of character between two well matched sides. For me, Kerry will always be the team to beat- some of their individual talent is incredible - but we have a better manager.

[whitegoodman]

Driocht, from the tv rooney looked impressive driving forward and mckernan seemed to get a bit of a roasting, would that be right.  how did dan do on star?

Interesting to see laverty getting another cameo, they seem to be alternating between him and murtagh for the sub role

Good to see rafferty coming on, who was that for.  There is going to be some fight for the corner back spots......people would have laughed at ya for saying that a year or 2 ago

[Dubh driocht]

Rooney and Garvey were both good driving forward with the latter getting a fine point.They had to do that to avoid the wipeout at midfield and that is where our management called it well. Equally Mc Ardle made a significant contribution pushing forward and you're right WVM that we have some competition at the back- remember O'Hagan's performances last year too ? Mc Kernan had his hands full but was good and even though I got abuse for saying it at the start of the league, I see him as a future captain.
Dan and Star both had their moments ; not surprising that Star got the better of Dan at the edge of the square as Dan is still learning that defending lark. When they came out the field Dan was better. I think with all the hype our team has got in the last 12 months we have forgotten what a quality player he is - reads the game well, cool in possession and a fine fielder.I have to pay tribute to Kalum as well after a tough week for him; suffice to say that if we didn't have him , we wouldn't have got promotion last year, wouldn't have got to the AI final and wouldn't have had a good league this year. He is so effective in his role, rarely loses possession and often is the reason we win it. Also seems like a decent lad although Thank God my playing days are over. My early nomination for the Spirit of Breen Morgan award- he doesn't do fear.
Star did do an 'Anthony Tohill' from a 'Maurice Fitzgerald' type sideline ball from Marty to prevent a point.
BTW didn't see Murtagh on the bench. Disappointed that John Clarke didn't get a run out as I still believe he has a lot to offer and his absence may be a reason for Marty's hesitancy. Last year Ambrose, Benny,Marty and JC automatically knew where each other were, and so many of our flowing moves resulted from this quartet or Danny's runs and energy or Mc Comiskey's confidence. Mind you the re-birth of Eoin Mc Cartan gives us yet another option but it will be hard to keep all these lads fresh and hungry- big gap now will need creative and motivating energy from the management.

[PAULD123]

Driocht, from the tv rooney looked impressive driving forward and mckernan seemed to get a bit of a roasting, would that be right.  how did dan do on star?....

Dan did well without doing brilliant. Donaghy scored only one point from play but did manage to get a lot of possession which he moved to other players. However when he came out with the ball Dan was all over him and prevented him from turning, also forced him into a fair amount of bad passes. If Dan had possession then Donaghy was never looking like taking it off him. Dan certainly didn't allow him to run the show like he did against Armagh.

On the other hand Gooch also only got one point but gave a lot of passes that did the damage. Their best moves came down his wing.

Kerry had a tremendous advantage with Sheehan who hit 3 frees which were 46m, 50m and about 50-55m on the angle. 

[passedit]

Anyone see the Tom O Sullivan incident? It would appear last year's fatwa has rte running scared, anyone seen Anthony tohill lately either?

[western exile]

The thing that worries me is that simply speaking, despite our tremedously skillful forwards, we just haven't been scoring enough. 14 today, 13 against Dublin, 15 against Cork, 16 against Mayo, 12 against Armagh, even 17 against Galway was nothing great. Only against Monaghan did we get a score (19) that could be expected to win most games. yet we are easily creating enough chances to score 19-20 points every game. If we can improve our conversion rate we can beat anyone. I think how the management address this issue will dictate out summer!

Those don't seem so bad 
But you got me thinking... so I looked up the stats for the last 5 league campaigns of An Dún.  Here they are:

                    For      Against
2011 (div 1)   7-85   8-84
2010 (div 2)   6-94   3-65
2009 (div 3)   4-97   5-72   
2008 (div 3)   7-89   10-73   
2007 (div 1B) 2-73   8-79

The more worrying fact is the number of points conceded, 84 is the most for 7 league games in the last 5 years (although it was facing Division 1 opposition).  And even more worrying is that they have gone back to the old habit of conceding on average more than 1 goal per match

[PAULD123]

You are right that you can't compare the scores in any given division but even if you look at the scores you put up here. This year we scored 92 points at an average of 13 points per game, in 2010 it was 16 points average, in 2009 14.5 per game. If we could have scored 16  points on average like last year we would most likely have been in a league final. Basically that is my point, we are about 2-3 points short on average of being genuine challengers. That's how close we, are and the management know this, they will be addressing it.

If you look at results over the last couple of years most games can be won with 17 points. In fact in the whole championship last year, 64 games, only one losing team scored more than 17 points in the 70 minutes.
(Kildare 1-16 against Louth). Also only four losing teams scored 17 points in 70 minutes (Kildare vs Down, Dublin vs Cork, Limerick vs Kerry, Cork vs Kerry - all 1-14 funny enough).

If we improve our scoring rate then our defence is already good enough to give us a chance. James will know this and I believe we will score at least 16 points against Armagh.

[whitegoodman]

Cheer for the updates lads.

I believe McKernan is an outstanding footballer but he needs to tighten up defensively and also get a better positional sense as teams seem to be able to go through the middle of us at the minute, hopefully this will come with time.  One thing u cant do is carry a CHB because of his attacking abilities but as i say hopefully the other areas of his game will improve with experience and age as there is no doubting his class.

[NP 76]

Although Mc Kernan is a good player he has to learn to defend he tries to mark the space and instead of taking a man its ok driving forward but his primary job is to defend O Suillivan roasted the defence couldnt get near him . I also thought Rooney poor Marc O Se took of with the ball and Rooney with no balll couldnt even get close to running along side him out of breath . Eoin and Laverty brought a bit of pace to the attack which was badly needed our forward play was way to laboured . What is wrong with kicking quick ball into the corner men instead of waiting to all the defenders retreat .  All in all a good enough league with Colgan Gerald Mc Cartan and Benny Mc Ardle giving us more options

[redandblackareback]

Rooney and Garvey were both good driving forward with the latter getting a fine point.They had to do that to avoid the wipeout at midfield and that is where our management called it well. Equally Mc Ardle made a significant contribution pushing forward and you're right WVM that we have some competition at the back- remember O'Hagan's performances last year too ? Mc Kernan had his hands full but was good and even though I got abuse for saying it at the start of the league, I see him as a future captain.
Dan and Star both had their moments ; not surprising that Star got the better of Dan at the edge of the square as Dan is still learning that defending lark. When they came out the field Dan was better. I think with all the hype our team has got in the last 12 months we have forgotten what a quality player he is - reads the game well, cool in possession and a fine fielder.I have to pay tribute to Kalum as well after a tough week for him; suffice to say that if we didn't have him , we wouldn't have got promotion last year, wouldn't have got to the AI final and wouldn't have had a good league this year. He is so effective in his role, rarely loses possession and often is the reason we win it. Also seems like a decent lad although Thank God my playing days are over. My early nomination for the Spirit of Breen Morgan award- he doesn't do fear.
Star did do an 'Anthony Tohill' from a 'Maurice Fitzgerald' type sideline ball from Marty to prevent a point.
BTW didn't see Murtagh on the bench. Disappointed that John Clarke didn't get a run out as I still believe he has a lot to offer and his absence may be a reason for Marty's hesitancy. Last year Ambrose, Benny,Marty and JC automatically knew where each other were, and so many of our flowing moves resulted from this quartet or Danny's runs and energy or Mc Comiskey's confidence. Mind you the re-birth of Eoin Mc Cartan gives us yet another option but it will be hard to keep all these lads fresh and hungry- big gap now will need creative and motivating energy from the management.

Dubh driocht I enjoy reading your opinions as your a very honest poster and clearly a huge follower of the county... I would have serious concerns over a couple of issues after sundays game.. Cant understand why aidan carr is not gettin any game time, a top class footballer and a lovely passer of the ball I do feel there is room for him. I was baffled at the decision to bring choc brannigan on as I was in the all ireland final, not sure of this at all!! Sunday also proved gerard mc carten is a much better option than Dan mc carten but unfortunately I feel family loyalities will dictate this selection come championship. We have improved in my opinion from last year, we r not playing sub standard opposition anymore (bar armagh) but genuine ulster and all ireland contenders. Well done roll on the end of May.

[Leo]

Cheer for the updates lads.

I believe McKernan is an outstanding footballer but he needs to tighten up defensively and also get a better positional sense as teams seem to be able to go through the middle of us at the minute, hopefully this will come with time.  One thing u cant do is carry a CHB because of his attacking abilities but as i say hopefully the other areas of his game will improve with experience and age as there is no doubting his class.

In EVERY game this year you could drive a truck down the meiddle of our defence simply because we are persisiting with a player whose natural insticnt is to expect other players to mark him! Great athlete & a natural ball player but NOT a CHB. We are being found out big time in this area.

[NP 76]

Agree 100% leo i would like to see Garvey or Benny Mc Ardle in here and Mc Kernan on the wing to let him get forward

[5 Sams]

A few observations. 

Kerry started as if they were saying "this is how football is played yiz Nordie hoors!" Their forward movement throughout was unreal but especially after 10 minutes we thought we were going be over run but fair play to Down they persisted, steadied the ship and could have nicked it.

Donaghy is going to be a handful for any defence this year and then there is the small matter of the other 7-8 forwards they can call upon. Sheehan seems to have lost weight when he came on for Galvin whose passing was sublime before he had to go off early.


Best for Down were Dan, Gerard McCartan and I thought Poland did a lot of good work. A few of our "stars" underperformed however which in a perverse way is encouraging because we came close to beating a good Kerry team without firing on all cylinders.

The match was really unimportant at the end of the day but it'll do some of our boys no harm at all to have 70 minutes under their belt against what is still one of the best teams in the country.

Apart from the match great weekend all round in Dingle and despite what Páídi ó Sé said in Sunday Indo there was no more than half a dozen Down fans out in the pub on Saturday night. I don't think he was too pleased

Finally, maybe I'm easily annoyed, but the guy writing about the match in the Irish News yesterday got a few very basic things wrong in his report not least that Eoin McCartan combined with Benny for the goal when it was obviously Conor Laverty....also he kept referring to Tomás Ó Sé's footblock for the penalty chance at the end when it is obvious from a big colour photo beside the article that it is Marc.....rant over...

[whitegoodman]

NP who would u drop if ur going to put Benny McArdle at CHB?  Think ur going to have the same problem with McKernan at Wing half as at centre half, sure he was dropped last year after playing wing half against donegal and tyrone only to recalled at CHB later in the year.  I dont no what u do with him!!  Our other options as CHB appear limited on the assumption that Doyle isnt seen as an option

I see some people are still of the thinking that Dan McCartan is on the county team because of who he is.  I thought people got over this last year when he more than proved himself worthy of a place on the team.