\u200bAll-Ireland senior football championship quarter-final<\/p>\n
Kerry 2-25 Tyrone 0-27<\/p>\n
By Paul Keane at Croke Park<\/p>\n
A classic Croke Park contest that will slip neatly in alongside any of the great Kerry-Tyrone contests from over the years.<\/p>\n
Holders Kerry, as they have done each time they’ve met since the 2021 All-Ireland semi-final, ultimately came out on top, securing their passage to the last four of the Sam Maguire Cup race.<\/p>\n
The cast of star performers was a familiar one; footballer of the year David Clifford reeling off 1-8, Dylan Geaney taking the man of the match award with 0-8, all from play, and Paudie Clifford chipping in with an important five points.<\/p>\n
Kerry scored four two-pointers in all and capped a thrilling game with a second goal in the closing seconds, from substitute Armin Heinrich.<\/p>\n
It was a crushing blow to a Tyrone side that fought superbly in front of 48,735.<\/p>\n
Playing without Darragh and Ruair\u00ed Canavan again, they were rallied by Darren McCurry who picked off 10 points despite only coming on as a 44th minute substitute.<\/p>\n
McCurry’s last score left one in it and Tyrone hoped to win the subsequent kick-out and to snatch at least a draw – but it was Kerry that won the break and they added that insurance goal from Heinrich.<\/p>\n
All the pre-game intrigue surrounded exactly what team Kerry would start with given that Gavin White, Se\u00e1n O’Shea and Shane Ryan were all options again.<\/p>\n
As it turned out, Ryan didn’t make the bench despite initially being named at number 16, so Se\u00e1n Broderick took his jersey.<\/p>\n
White, wearing number 22, started at wing-back in place of Brian \u00d3 Beaglaoich though O’Shea stayed exactly where he was named, on the bench.<\/p>\n
That left Kerry with some serious impact options with O’Shea joined by the likes of Tony Brosnan, Killian Spillane and Tadhg Morley.<\/p>\n
The team that started did a pretty good job of repaying boss Jack O’Connor’s faith as they led by 1-11 to 0-12 at half time despite playing into a stiffening breeze.<\/p>\n
Paudie Clifford drilled a two-pointer from a free after five minutes but it was his little brother David that quickly emerged as the game’s leading performer.<\/p>\n
Fossa wizard David had helped himself to 1-4 in the first half alone, the majority of it at the expense of man-marker Cormac Quinn.<\/p>\n
Niall Devlin, who marked Paul Geaney for the first 25 minutes or so, was eventually switched across to mark Clifford.<\/p>\n
The Clifford goal in the 20th minute was a thing of beauty, a mixture of raw power, determination and stunning skill as the number 13 took a pass from White, powered beyond Clarke and into a position to get a powerful left footed shot away to the corner of Niall Morgan’s net.<\/p>\n
David was the provider for an earlier Paul Geaney goal chance that Morgan blocked in the sixth minute.<\/p>\n
At the other end, Tyrone seemed more interested in scoring two-pointers.<\/p>\n
Conn Kilpatrick, Ethan Jordan and Kieran McGeary all raised orange flags in the first half hour.<\/p>\n
The McGeary one was a peach as he began the move at the other end of the field by stripping Paul Geaney of possession after the Kingdom forward had intercepted a short Morgan kick-out.<\/p>\n
But Tyrone were always going to need at least a goal to get the better of the champions and didn’t carve out a single chance in the first half. Full-forward Mattie Donnelly sniped a point but his marker, Kerry full-back Jason Foley, was happy with his work overall.<\/p>\n
Shane Murphy’s precise kick-outs were a feature again of Kerry’s win. Like his driven eighth minute kick that perfectly picked out a darting Mark O’Shea run, the move ending in a David Clifford point.<\/p>\n
Another Murphy missile put Kerry on the front foot in the 40th minute and the move ended with a Dylan Geaney two-pointer.<\/p>\n
David Clifford kicked Kerry’s third two-pointer in the 45th minute – Tyrone didn’t retreat after O’Brien’s brilliant fetch from a Murphy kick-out and the ball was advanced into two-point range – to leave the scores 1-16 to 0-14.<\/p>\n
Tyrone needed a lift and got it with Darren McCurry’s introduction. Fresh off his six-point haul against Mayo, the Edendork man wasted little time in converting a two-pointer from a free won by McGeary.<\/p>\n
Kerry responded by bringing on O’Shea but Tyrone kept the foot down, pinching points from Eoin McElholm and McCurry.<\/p>\n
McElholm’s 53rd minute point that left Tyrone just one behind, 0-19 to 1-17, was a let off for Kerry as the ball hit the bar and flew over.<\/p>\n
McCurry stole the show in the final quarter, bringing his tally into double digits and doing everything humanly possible to rescue a result for Tyrone.<\/p>\n
But Tyrone simply couldn’t get ahead of a Kerry side that were always just about beyond their reach.<\/p>\n
That was mainly thanks to points from the two Cliffords – David fisted two scores with his ‘weaker’ right hand – and Dylan Geaney.<\/p>\n
McCurry’s 10th score was a point from a 70th minute free. Kerry won the kick out and David Clifford cleverly retained possession down in the right corner forward position before freeing Heinrich who somehow got a shot away from a tight angle to the net.<\/p>\n
Kerry fans rejoiced. Tyrone were left to wonder just how they’d lost by four.<\/p>\n
Kerry scorers: David Clifford 1-8 (1 tpf, 0-1f), Dylan Geaney 0-8 (2 tp), Paudie Clifford 0-5 (1 tpf, 0-1 45), Armin Heinrich 1-0, Paul Geaney 0-3 (0-2f), Diarmuid O’Connor 0-1.<\/p>\n
Tyrone scorers: Darren McCurry 0-10 (2 tpf, 0-2f), Ethan Jordan 0-4 (1 tp, 0-1f), Mattie Donnelly 0-3, Eoin McElholm 0-3, Conn Kilpatrick 0-2 (tp), Kieran McGeary 0-2 (tp), Se\u00e1n O’Donnell 0-1, Ronan Cassidy 0-1, Michael McKernan 0-1.<\/p>\n
Kerry: Shane Murphy; Paul Murphy, Jason Foley, Dylan Casey; Graham O’Sullivan, Mike Breen, Gavin White; Mark O’Shea, Joe O’Connor; Se\u00e1n O’Brien, Paudie Clifford, Diarmuid O’Connor; David Clifford, Paul Geaney, Dylan Geaney.<\/p>\n
Subs: Se\u00e1n O’Shea for Paul Geaney 47, Keith Evans for O’Brien 56, Evan Looney for Murphy 57, Armin Heinrich for O’Sullivan 60, Tadhg Morley for Breen 67-f\/t, blood, Killian Spillane for Dylan Geaney 68.<\/p>\n
Tyrone: Niall Morgan; Joey Clarke, Niall Devlin, Cormac Quinn; Michael McKernan, Peter Teague, Kieran McGeary; Brian Kennedy, Conn Kilpatrick; Se\u00e1nie O’Donnell, Ronan Cassidy, Ciar\u00e1n Daly; Eoin McElholm, Mattie Donnelly, Ethan Jordan.<\/p>\n
Subs: Michael Rafferty for Clarke 24-33 blood, Darren McCurry for Daly 44, Ciar\u00e1n Bogue for Jordan 56, Frank Burns for McGeary 59, Michael Rafferty for Quinn 60, Conor O’Neill for Cassidy 66.<\/p>\n
Referee: Paddy Neilan (Roscommon).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200bAll-Ireland senior football championship quarter-final Kerry 2-25 Tyrone 0-27 By Paul Keane at Croke Park A classic Croke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-521722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}