Kildare 1-21 Cork 1-13
Choose a tagline. Redemption and ruin wrapped up in this Kildare Cork duet. Or simply, the manipulation of Gaelic football’s flawed playing rules continues.
“That was huge,” said Jason Ryan. “We’ve been waiting a long time for a win against a division one team. The week around the Dublin game was really, really tough for the whole group.”
So Kildare get their turn at what Cork crave the most but nearly always fail to achieve: outlasting Kerry. This milestone victory brings them back to Croke Park on Sunday for another shot at breaking the established counties grip of the championship.
Ultimately Cork’s season was lost when they drew a game they should have won. Kildare out smarted, and via Niall Kelly’s 1-4 punished, Brian Cuthbert’s jaded rebels.
How fickle it all is; the result being an indictment of Cuthbert’s management, already lambasted this summer by Tomás Ó Sé, just as it enhances Ryan’s credibility.
His incessant yells were audible from the media perch above the empty Kinnane stand. “Ollie! OLLIE!” Ollie Lyons sheepishly looked to his bainisteoir. “Hand ups! HANDS UP, Ollie!” Lyons, an obedient and quality defender, duly waved both paws as Colm O’Neill popped a free over the bar when the game still mattered.
“We are all easily excitable sometimes. Whether any of the shouting had any structure to it I don’t know. I’ll have some psychologist listen to it. My brother just spoke to me there and he was saying some of the language was a bit choice and shouldn’t have been used.
“No, you can say whatever you want from the sideline but very often players don’t hear it.
“It’s the players on the field that make the decisions, they carry out the plays. Whatever structure was there was developed, organised and executed by the players.”
But Ryan’s sideline demeanour is above reproach. Even by his brother. He figured out each Cork flaw, instilling his players with patience when in possession. That’s the game nowadays, that’s all it is.
After relegation from division two unleashed the venom of impatient Kildare supporters and local media he sees plaudits and abuse as bedfellows.
“I don’t think expectation levels in Kildare can increase,” he part smiled, part grimaced. “At the start of the year it was Leinster, national league, All-Ireland. That was the belief there amongst the supporters. It’s been the same way as that for a rather long time.”
The match was all too briefly a contest. Alan Smith showed well for ball despite the sticky Jamie O’Sullivan while Kelly’s excellent 0-3 from play was equalled by Eoghan O’Flaherty’s placed ball return as Kildare strode into a 0-8 to 0-5 half hour lead.
Kelly has been effectively injured for three years. Kildare can't do without such a quality forward.
As each point went over Ryan edged closer to hoarseness. Cuthbert, a more imposing sideline presence, was largely silent (afterwards he added less). Not much can be said about James Loughney’s black card after 10 minutes for taking out Cathal McNally or Alan O’Connor’s right knee buckling when the veteran midfielder landed with a sickening thud on 18 minutes.
O’Connor was an enormous loss. It pretty much gifted the sky to Tommy Moolick. We wrongly presumed Cork would go down fighting when Paul Kerrigan’s wonderful point was added to a brilliant earlier effort by O’Neill.
But Kildare’s travelling horde sounded larger than they were when Lyons overlapped to kick them into a 0-11 to 0-5 interval lead.
Cork looked nothing like the men who rattled the All-Ireland champions in Killarney as Kelly calmly took his goal three minutes into the second half. It was over before the merest hint of a revival - a Paul Cribbin score from distance followed up by Mark Donnellan’s 45 and a free by O’Flaherty carved a gaping ten points between them.
Then Kevin O’Driscoll got a straight red card for kicking Eoin Doyle.
O’Neill’s 57th minute “wonder goal” came too late, Cork were already dead and buried. Even still, Ryan kept cajoling more from the Lilywhite defensive system, only too aware of the enormous challenge that rushes to meet them.
“Today is one win. Three wins in a row now. We need more. Kildare needs more than that.”
That’s the difference; Ryan let it all hang out while Cuthbert kept it bottled up inside. Some choice language is better than the sound of silence. And now Cork are gone.
Kildare: 1 Mark Donnellan (0-2, free and 45); 4 Ollie Lyons (0-1), 2 Ciarán Fitzpatrick, 3 Mick O'Grady; 5 Kevin Murnaghan, 6 Eoin Doyle, 7 Emmet Bolton; 8 Tommy Moolick, 9 Paul Cribbin (0-2); 15 Cathal McNally (0-1), 10 Eoghan O'Flaherty (0-5, all frees), 12 Pádraig O'Neill (0-1); 11 Niall Kelly (1-4), 14 Alan Smith (0-2), 13 Eamonn Callaghan.
Substitutions: 26 Pádraig Fogarty (0-3, one free) for E Callaghan (34 mins), 17 Peter Kelly for M O'Grady (36 mins), 24 Mark Sherry for E O'Flaherty (49 mins, black card), 23 Mickey Conway for C McNally (56 mins), 19 Fergal Conway for N Kelly (63 mins), 20 Gary Whyte for A Smith (70 mins).
Cork: 1 Ken O'Halloran; 2 Michael Shields, 3 Jamie O'Sullivan, 5 Stephen Cronin; 7 Barry O'Driscoll, 4 James Loughrey, 19 Conor Dorman; 8 Alan O'Connor, 9 Eoin Cadogan; 10 Colm O'Driscoll, 11 Mark Collins (0-1), 12 Kevin O'Driscoll; 13 Colm O'Neill (1-4, 1-2 frees), 14 Paul Kerrigan (0-1), 15 Donncha O'Connor (0-5, three frees, 45).
Substitutions: 6 Brian O'Driscoll (0-1, free) for J Loughrey (10 mins, black card), 21 Fintan Goold for Alan O'Connor (18 mins, inj), 22 Brian Hurley (0-1) for Colm O'Driscoll (half-time), 17 Tomás Clancy for S Cronin (43 mins), 26 John O'Rourke for C Dorman (47 mins)
