There were ten minutes left when every ghost and devil draped in white and red from Kerry’s past with Tyrone came swirling around their heads again.
Peter Harte had hammered home a penalty. Tyrone were a point behind. The rain had eased and the sky was clearing. The Tyrone crowd were revived and their team were bouncing with electricity.
At the end of a game of high drama and skill on a greasy day that captured everything great about a gloriously unpredictable rivalry and redeemed a dull championship summer from the bin, the grumble in Kerry’s guts for another All-Ireland was about to be tested.
Their reaction was everything Kerry would have hoped to see. For Tyrone, the tingle of a dream victory was transformed into a waking nightmare. They will rage against a yellow card against Padraig McNulty for diving when a penalty for Tyrone looked just as likely, black cards given against them and not given against Shane Enright and chances at clutch moments that drifted away, taking the winning of the game with them.
Some will say there was something karmic in those final acts after a summer occasionally blighted by too much niggle from Tyrone. The harsher reality is that more inconsistent refereeing almost sabotaged a great game. That problem can be found at the end of every debate about diving and cynicism like a bad penny.
Advertisement
Kerry rode the wave of a few ropey decisions and an avalanche of goal chances wasted by Tyrone, but there is also an admirable grit about Kerry that is getting them through.
Yesterday wasn’t a day adorned by Colm Cooper’s virtuosity or Kieran Donaghy’s domination of the skies. David Moran held Mattie Donnelly well at centrefield but didn’t control the pulse of the game like other days and while some of James O’Donoghue’s work in open play was magnificent, he didn’t score from play.
Kerry still found the players to find a way to win. When Tyrone charged like a train at Kerry early on, Johnny Buckley nipped into a few pockets of space behind them and picked off three crucial points. Anthony Maher emerged from nowhere to kick a point for the ages late on after Harte’s penalty. Killian Young followed him to place the game out of reach.
Donnchadh Walsh was relentless. Peter Crowley crawled under Sean Cavanagh’s skin early on and stayed there, badgering and baiting him all day. Beside all the good in their work, it will worry Kerry that their biggest problems were irritatingly familiar.
Tipperary and Cork ran at them like demons during the Munster championship and blew open a few worrying holes through the middle of their defence. Whenever Tyrone got Mark Bradley and Peter Harte doing the same thing, Kerry fell away again.
Advertisement
The chances came at key moments that could have damaged Kerry and lifted Tyrone. If even one more had been converted, the game would have tilted irretrievably Tyrone’s way.
Therein lay the material difference between potential and proven winners. It was a performance from Tyrone that almost delivered Mickey Harte his most treasured scalp against Kerry but ultimately left them with two All-Ireland semi-final defeats in three years.
They will regret five goal chances only yielding a single goal, getting the wrong kickers shooting for scores too often and too many bad kickouts that were recycled into Kerry scores. On a day of fine margins, it was too much to absorb and still win.
Kerry now face an All-Ireland final suitably stretched and tested by Cork and Tyrone with plenty to recommend them for two in a row and the collective mind to block out all that plamás.
At the end Eamonn Fitzmaurice removed his peaked cap, shook hands with Mickey Harte and his own platoon of backroom lieutenants, and disappeared down the tunnel to begin a familiar month of plotting and scheming.
Advertisement
In a county where championship business is rarely settled till September, August is no time for celebrating.