The pope died on Sunday. Here’s hoping his holiness got to see the Kerry–Cork football match first. To call it the greatest Gaelic game of the millennium would be an understatement of Irish proportions. Or something. But as GAA+ play-by-play man Liam Aherne gushed within seconds of the game’s end: “My god!”
On a rain-soaked pitch at regal Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork on Saturday evening, the Kingdom advanced in the Munster Championships—one of the provincial tournaments that determines seeding for the All-Ireland Championship—by outlasting the underdog squad from the Rebel County in overtime, 3-21 to 1-25. The back-and-forth contest climaxed on a shocking goal from Kerry midfielder Joe O’Connor, who blasted a ball from 20 meters out in traffic into the Cork net late in the second extra period. The action gave fans, players, and even broadcast commentators no time to breathe from halftime to the final horn (or “hooter” in GAA parlance).
The GAA needed a football game this good to yank fans out of the doldrums created by the recently ended Allianz League season, the most boring and ignored season in memory from the confederation that dates back 100 years and was formerly known as the National Football League. A league title used to mean something, but in recent years more and more counties are treating the Allianz slate each winter the way NFL teams treat preseason games, where contests are mainly just tolerated to get ready for the real thing; in the case of Gaelic, the real thing is the fight for Sam Maguire Cup awarded to the All-Ireland champions each summer.
The tedium of this year’s league season was exacerbated by several major rules changes implemented in the offseason by the Gaelic Athletic Association in hopes of adding offense. One of the primary changes is that teams must now keep at least three of their 14 field players, plus the goalkeeper, on the defensive side of the midfield line at all times, the intent being to give attacking offenses more room to maneuver and run plays. If an extra player wanders over the line, the opposing team gets a free kick and likely score.
The other highly momentous new rule was the installation of a two-point arc 40 meters out from the goal; a long blast over the bar from behind the line is now doubled in value.
For all the good intentions behind the new rules, the main byproduct was confusion. Neither fans, coaches, players nor even referees had an easy time grasping what it all meant. The season was a complete bust. Matches were routinely delayed by referee conferences to figure out crimes and punishments. Even playoff games were played before small crowds. In the league championship held March 30 in Killarney, Kerry crushed Mayo,1-18 to 1-12, to win its 24th league title. But nobody cared.
So you could say the GAA and the football world needed an all-timer of a match to bring everybody back to the game that’s been more than a game to the Irish since the 1880s. Kerry vs. Cork filled that bill.
With two-footed booting from David Clifford, Kerry’s superstar full-forward and likely a reason “David” is back among the most popular baby names in Ireland, Kerry took the lead early and kept it into the second half.
But the game turned in the 58th minute, with Kerry up 1-17 to 0-13, when David’s brother and former Kerry captain Paudie Clifford clotheslined Cork’s Matty Taylor after a kickout. Despite Paudie’s protestations that the big hit was accidental, referee Barry Tiernan doled out a straight red card.
All hell proceeded to break loose within seconds of Paudie’s exit. In their first possession with a man up, Cork forward Cathail O’Mahony took advantage of the extra room and the new rules and booted a two-pointer. Then a minute later, Cork’s Sean McDonald put a blast from beyond the arc between the posts for another deuce. Cork forced a turnover on the subsequent kickout, which Rebel forward Chris Og Jones turned into a goal. Paudie Clifford had been gone barely two minutes, and so was Kerry’s lead!
And Cork did not let up once they got things level! At 63:15, Ruari Deane put his boot to the ball from just inside the arc, and the point put Cork ahead for the first time all game. That’s an eight-point swing in just five minutes.
The home crowd was freaking out. And they weren’t alone: “By god are Cork taking this game to Kerry!” roared play-by-play man Aherne.
Kerry ain’t regarded as the New York Yankees of Irish football for nothing. With less than five minutes left on the regulation clock and his team down a man and a point, Kerry mainstay Seanie O’Shea took the ball down the left flank and, sensing an opening along the end line, put his head down and made a break for the goal, trailed by three panicked but tired Cork defenders. O’Shea, inserted into the lineup at the half, was seeing his first game action in nine weeks after a knee injury early into the league season. The bum wheel looked fine as O’Shea ended his magnificent run with a big boot off his right foot to put the ball in the back of the net for a goal. Replays showed O’Shea might’ve taken more than double the allowed four steps as a ball carrier before his fab finish. But at this stage in O’Shea’s marvelous career, Jordan Rules apply. Kerry was back from the dead, and back in the lead by two.
But on this day Cork wasn’t gonna give up, either. The Rebels responded with desperation points from Mark Cronin and Eoghan McSweeney, the latter to tie things up with just eight seconds left in regulation. And on came overtime.
The crazy pace never waned. In the fourth minute of the 20-minute extra session, Kerry got a big break when Cork’s Sean Brady was sent off with a straight red card after simultaneously delivering a shoulder to the head and a punch to the gut of Kerry midfielder Joe O’Connor. So both teams would play out the game with 14 men. Cork and Kerry then traded leads until O’Connor’s heroic blast from the gods as the clock wound down.
“It’s Joe O’Connor who pulls the rabbit out of the hat!” screamed Aherne, his marvelous brogue hilariously hoarse from getting so caught up in this thoroughly exhausting slugfest. Brid Stack, herself a former All-Ireland winning footballer from Cork providing slanted color commentary on the telecast, could only add a shriek, so stunned was she by O’Connor’s mighty kick. Shrieking was wholly appropriate.
Cork worked its way into two late scoring opportunities. But Conor Cahalane’s attempt at a goal went just wide of the far post, and then Cathail O’Mahony’s desperation two-pointer after the final hooter went barely wide left. When the ball hit the ground, the referee called full-time. O’Connor’s heroics held up. Kerry had won.
In a postgame interview conducted pitchside, Kerry manager Jack O’Connor summed up the match as “a Mother and Father of a battle.”
Joe O’Connor (no obvious relation), while accepting his man-of-the-match honors, was asked to explain his amazing goal. He couldn’t. “I just had a pop,” he said, giggling.
Kerry now play Clare in the Munster final on May 4 in Killarney, and will be heavily favored on its home turf. The provincial winner advances directly to the quarterfinals of the All-Ireland championship. Kerry has won 38 titles, the first coming in 1903 and most recent in 2022. Cork, with seven Sams overall and none since 2010, will need to win play-in matches to force a rematch in the late rounds of the national tournament. But, speaking for everybody who watched this weekend’s action: Here’s hoping they run this back soon.
