Kerry 0-16 Mayo 0-15
At Austin St Park Saturday 17/2/2024
Cometh the last second cometh the man, as David Clifford dug Kerry out of a hole with a 73rd minute winning point against Mayo with some late drama in Tralee.
Mayo came to the Kingdom unbeaten and buoyed by early wins over Galway and Dublin, and looked well set to leave Tralee with a point after Ryan O’Donoghue levelled the score with 70 minutes gone at a drizzly Austin Stack Park.
At that stage Kevin McStay would probably have grabbed a draw with both hands, but Kerry’s need for both points – with a loss and win after the first two rounds – was greater. And so it was that David Clifford conjured up the winning point with the last kick of the game at the end of a tight game that packed all its excitement into that final play and point.
Having lost to Mayo in League and Championship last year, Kerry will be happy enough to have shown Mayo to the door in Tralee on a drizzly Saturday night, but Jack O’Connor will ruminate deep into the week on a scrappy performance that had Kerry scrambling for the win from a game they were only ever behind in for a minute at the very beginning.
Having trailed by three points on the 60-minute mark, and with stand-out defender Sam Callinan sent off on a yellow followed by a black, Mayo dragged themselves back into the game until Ryan O’Donoghue’s converted free squared the scores, 0-15 apiece, in the 70th minute.
The allotted three minutes of additional time had almost elapsed when Kerry patiently worked the ball for one last counter-offensive, Sean O’Shea getting the ball to David Clifford and the Footballer of the Year doing the rest.
It was a win Kerry possibly just about deserved, though nine wides and a couple of shots dropped short could have denied them on another night. Mayo, too, will rue some sloppy shot execution, but the visitors couldn’t have been begrudged a share of the points but for Clifford’s late magic.
Fergal Boland punched Mayo into the lead after 25 seconds before David Clifford equalised a minute later, and Kerry were never behind after that.
In what was a passive sort of contest Paudie Clifford put Kerry 0-3 to 0-1 ahead although missed chances were more the order of the half than brilliant scores.
Callinan’s eighth minute score was notable, but so was David Clifford’s uncharacteristic scuffed effort two minutes later to create a shot on goal that Colm Reape easily gathered.
Sean O’Shea and O’Donoghue exchanged pointed frees, then David Clifford and Callinan traded scores to make it 0-5 to 0-4 after 27 minutes.
Aidan O’Shea set up O’Donoghue for another Mayo point, before Jason Foley stormed forward to kick Kerry into a 0-7 to 0-5 half time lead.
With a strong wind it was a slim Kerry lead to take to the interval, having registered seven wides in the opening period. Dylan Geaney’s point opened up the game’s first three-point gap early in the second half, but Mayo found an extra gear in the second half and cut the deficit to a point by the 53rd minute.
Diarmuid O’Connor and Paudie Clifford extended Kerry into a 0-14 to 0-11 lead, and when Callinan was sent off in the 59th minute for a black card on top of an earlier yellow, Mayo’s challenge looked. However, Reape converted a free, and O’Donoghue scored twice to make it 0-15 apiece with three additional minutes to play.
It took Kerry all of that time to engineer the one chance they needed when they got the ball to Clifford. The 2023 Footballer of the Year didn’t need to be asked what to do.
Scorers for Kerry: D Clifford 0-5, P Clifford 0-4, S O’Shea 0-4 (3fs), J Foley 0-1, D Geaney 0-1, D O’Connor 0-1.
Scorers for Mayo: R O’Donoghue 0-5 (2f), F Boland 0-3, S Callinan 0-2, D O’Connor 0-1, B Tuohy 0-1, J Flynn 0-1, D McHale 0-1, C Reape 0-1 (f).
Kerry: Shane Ryan, Graham O’Sullivan, Jason Foley, Dylan Casey, Tom O’Sullivan, Tadhg Morley, Gavin White, Diarmuid O’Connor, Joe O’Connor, Paudie Clifford, Dylan Geaney, Cillian Burke, David Clifford, Seán O’Shea, Dara Moynihan
Subs: Subs: Conor Geaney for D Geaney (49), Barry Dan O’Sullivan for J O’Connor (54), Paul Murphy for T Morley (58), Adrian Spillane for D Moynihan (63), Ronan Buckley for C Burke (66).
Mayo: Colm Reape; Jack Coyne, David McBrien, Donnacha McHugh; Sam Callinan, Rory Brickenden, Enda McLaughlin; Jack Carney, Diarmuid O’Connor; Bob Tuohy, Fergal Boland, Jordan Flynn; Aidan O’Shea, Tommy Conroy, Ryan O’Donoghue.
Subs: Darren McHale for A O’Shea (48), Enda Hession for E McLoughlin (48), Stephen Coen for D McBrien (58), Cillian O’Connor for B Tuohy (59), Ciaran Boland for T Conroy (71).
Referee: Derek O’Mahoney (Tipperary).
