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Kerry get yerrah'd, Beggan's boot and the Howard always wins

Galway 1-13 – 1-10 Kerry The biggest challenge for Kerry last week, it seemed, was to suppr...



Kerry get yerrah'd, Beggan...
Football

Kerry get yerrah'd, Beggan's boot and the Howard always wins

Galway 1-13 – 1-10 Kerry

The biggest challenge for Kerry last week, it seemed, was to suppress expectations. A county came together to scream from the rooftops about the challenge that Galway would pose, to ‘yerrah’ as hard as they collectively could and rubbish the prophecy that Kerry’s kids were about to win ten All-Irelands in a row.

The good news this week for Kerry is that the art of yerrah’ing is now a hell of a lot easier, due to the fact that you don’t need to yerrah when everyone thinks you’re overrated. An eraser has been taken to the sky-high trajectory that was pencilled in and their stock has seemingly plummeted.

Kerry were terrible, which doesn’t lessen the magnitude of this Galway victory. Because they were also sub-par. An 11-point turnaround in the space of one year to end a 53-year wait for a Championship win over Kerry? And they did it without being anywhere close to perfect? Kevin Walsh better study the tapes of down-playing royalty, a.k.a. Messrs Fitzmaurice, Ó Sé and O’Connor, because some cute hoorism is required to suppress the Tribe’s renewed expectations.  

 

Monaghan 0-15 – 1-10 Kildare

I would be surprised if the pubs from Clones to Carrickmacross weren’t filled with comparisons of Rory Beggan’s right boot to Helen of Troy’s face last night. By the time he’s hung up the boots, his kickouts will have launch’d a thousand attacks for Malachy O’Rourke’s side. His ability to kick-start Monaghan’s attacks is underlined in the plains of Croke Park and yesterday was no different. Niall Kearns and Karl O’Connell are both in All-Star form and, with the platform Beggan is providing, they now resemble a side that might begin to start turning the heads of the nation.

Each time Monaghan lose at Headquarters in the All-Ireland series it feels like the end of an admirable journey, that they’ve once again reached their peak and sure weren’t they great earlier in the summer? Except yesterday they won. They are now in the conversation and could well end a 30 year wait for an All-Ireland semi-final.

On Kildare, you could do a lot worse this week than setting Daniel Flynn’s goal, on-loop, as your screensaver. It was spectacular. He’s kind of important to their chances against Galway next weekend.

 

Dublin 2-15 – Donegal 0-16

Brian Howard is like a rigged coin toss. He shows up in a 50-50 situation – be it a tackle, a high-ball, a contested ball on the ground – and comes out the winner every single time. He is the master of the mini-battle and outstanding at, well, just being there. When you need him to be in the right place and do the correct thing, he will nail it, if you can ‘nail’ such a seemingly straightforward thing.

He was outstanding on Saturday night. Look away for one second and he’s back on the ball, once again making the correct decision, probably frustrating Donegal with his execution of the basics. Two points to his name helped grab a few more plaudits, too.

In Michael Langan and Jamie Brennan, Donegal still have destructive inside forwards, but it’s predictably evident that Paddy McBrearty would have turned them into contenders.

 

Tyrone 4-24 – 2-12 Roscommon

So, let’s make sense of this: Tyrone were beaten by Monaghan who were beaten by Fermanagh this year. Actually, let’s not try to make sense of that. Let’s just leave the Ulster football championship’s results sit in the ‘never-to-be-analysed’ drawer in filing cabinet, because even Horatio Caine’s forensics team couldn’t possibly illuminate what happened there.

Tyrone were awesome on Saturday night. With every surging run from Niall Sludden and every piece of brilliance from Richard Donnelly, the amnesia started to set in. This Tyrone team surely did not get slaughtered in an All-Ireland semi-final last year; we all imagined it.

Next weekend in Omagh is going to be one of the ties of the Championship and you have to expect Tyrone to rubber-stamp their All-Ireland credentials.

Roscommon, on this evidence, would do very well to beat Donegal next and it could be ugly again for them in Croke Park if Dublin are looking for a win on Matchday 3.

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