Kerry have lost their All-Ireland Intermediate camogie championsship final.
They were beaten in Croke Park by Offaly, 14 points to 11.
Offaly had the first 3 points of the decider, all inside 4 minutes.
Patrice Diggin then got Kerry on the board from a free and after Offaly pointed Diggin repeated the trick.
That made it Kerry 0-2 Offaly 0-4 after 8 minutes. Jackie Horgan reduced the gap to 1 after 10 minutes. On the quarter hour mark Diggin had Kerry level at 4 all.
Offaly had the next 2 points to lead by that margin in the 22nd minute. Back to back Kingdom points drew them level at 6 all with 3 minutes remaining in the half.
2 Offaly points in a row had them back in front heading into added on time. Patrice Diggin halved that deficit and Kerry trailed 8 to 7 at the break.
It was 9 minutes into the second period before the next score arrived, Patrice Diggin putting over her 6th of the day to bring Kerry level. However, Offaly went right up the other end and pointed to nudge in front again.
Offaly were ahead by 10 points to 8 after 44 minutes. Kerry then had a superb double chance of netting but after Jackie Horgan's initial effort was saved Ellen O'Donoghue couldn't convert the rebound.
Offaly led 11 to 9 heading into the closing 10 minutes. Patrice Diggin cut that gap in half with 6 minutes left. Offaly made it a two point game four minutes from time. That lead increased to 3 in the 58th minute and it stood at 13 to 10 entering 4 added on minutes.
Offaly went 4 clear midway through those extra minutes. Patrice Diggin put over in the closing minute to narrow that deficit to 3. Offaly won by 3.
Kerry manager John Madden
Offaly manager David Sullivan
Full match report:
The tension of a Glen Dimplex All-Ireland final was evident in what was a defensive and error-ridden battle between Offaly and Kerry, but on a day when an array of forwards that have illuminated the intermediate championship so far were largely kept under lock and key by their markers, Grace Teehan brought the perfect mix of talent and tenacity to drive the midlanders back up to senior championship competition.
Teehan registered four points from play and earned three more converted frees, producing her biggest moments in the closing stages when everyone else – on both sides – seemed to have lost the ability to find the target in the face of suffocating defensive play.
Had Offaly let it slip, they would have been haunted by their tally of 13 wides and another handful of shots dropped short, though Kerry will look back at the game’s most clearcut goal chance midway through the second half as their ‘sliding doors’ moment.
Jackie Horgan’s seismic battle with Amy Byrne was one of the defining individual contests throughout the game and the Kingdom stalwart finally shook off the shackles of her Faithful follower before whipping a shot off her left from 12 metres out.
Emer Reynolds, who has made the Offaly custodian position her own since getting a chance against Westmeath midway through the Summer, got a strong block and then reacted sharply to put off Amy O’Sullivan from knocking the sliotar into the net from a few metres out.
Ellen O’Donoghue took a point from the loose ball that followed but it was Kerry’s best chance to take a lead, and instead they were always that point or two adrift, even if Offaly couldn’t relax until team captain Orlagh Phelan collected the last long, hopeful Kerry delivery in the sixth minute of stoppage time, the last action before Donnacha O’Callaghan confirmed their win.
For the opening six minutes, the Offaly attack looked every bit like the side that scored 12-71 in five games up to the final.
Clodagh Leahy split the uprights from the Hogan Stand side of the pitch on the very first attack and difficult positions were to prove no obstacle to her as she also found the target with two frees, one from each touchline.
A Patrice Diggin reply was quickly followed by Mairéad Teehan emerging out of heavy traffic at centre forward to split the uprights, but Kerry stemmed the bleeding from there, aided by the midlanders missing the target with their next three attempts.
Diggin, Caoimhe Spillane and Niamh Leen got around the breaks on the Offaly puckout and the decision to play just two inside forwards with O’Donoghue coming back to the midfield sector added to Kerry’s edge in that crucial battle.
Jackie Horgan exploited the space that was left close to goal by getting out in to register one point of her own and to win two frees that were converted by Diggin.
By the time Leahy struck Offaly’s next point from a 45 the momentum had been stripped from the Offaly attack and it was Kerry who continued to enjoy that bit more primary possession, even if they struggled to convert it into clearcut chances at the other end.
Two superb Grace Teehan points and another long-range effort from Ellen Regan ensured Offaly held the narrowest of leads at the break, though Amy Byrne and Róisín Kinsella both had to come up with big defensive plays to prevent Amy O’Sullivan and Kate Lynch from adding further scores.
The defensive dominance at both ends was turned up to 11 on the dial after half-time when the first eight minutes passed without a score. Aoife Fitzgerald came up with a vital save to parry Mairéad Teehan’s goal attempt and Diggin duly levelled the game from a 45 a minute later, but as was the case so many times during this game, when Offaly’s need was greatest, Grace Teehan came up with a vital score in reply.
A mere 0-2 each was added to the scoreboard over the next 17 minutes, but the last five minutes once again belonged to Teehan as she fired over two points either side of winning a free that Clodagh Leahy pointed to see Offaly home.
SCORERS FOR OFFALY: C Leahy 0-7 (0-4f, 0-1 45), G Teehan 0-5 (0-1f), M Teehan 0-1, E Regan 0-1.
SCORERS FOR KERRY: P Diggin 0-8 (0-6f, 0-1 45), J Horgan 0-1, K Lynch 0-1, E O’Donoghue 0-1.
OFFALY: E Reynolds; A Liffey, A Byrne, M King; E Regan, R Kinsella, O Phelan; C Cleary, S Shanahan; F Dooley, M Teehan, G Teehan; C Leahy, C Maher, K Pilkington. Subs: F Mulrooney for Maher (33), C Fogarty for King (47), O Kilmartin for Pilkington (50), K Kennedy for Liffey (58), C O’Donovan for Cleary (60)
KERRY: A Fitzgerald; M Costello, S Murphy, R McCarthy; R Quinn, N Leen, A Behan; P Diggin, C Spillane; AM Leen, K Lynch, R O’Connor; E O’Donoghue, J Horgan, A O’Sullivan. Subs: S Collins for AM Leen (half-time), K Ryan for O’Sullivan (50), E Conway for O’Donoghue (60)
Both Offaly and Kerry scored their lowest tallies of the season so far in what proved to be an arm-wrestle of a final in the Glen Dimplex Intermediate Championship decider at Croke Park yesterday, with Grace Teehan clinching silverware for the midlanders and Player of the Match honours in a strong finish for the victorious Faithful County.
“It wasn’t vintage by our own standard, it was a very cagey, nervous sort of game,” said Faithful County manager David Sullivan, who two years ago was Tipperary manager when a similarly tight junior final went Clare’s way by 3-7 to 1-9.
Perhaps that experience was central to the message that he drummed home since first taking charge of Offaly in November of that year.
“We asked them to put a bit of pride back in the jersey, that wearing the jersey isn’t taken for granted and that hard work is instilled back in that jersey. We demand that every day, they give it, and hard work won that final today. It wasn’t brilliant hurling, it was hard work and taking our opportunities”.
Offaly took more chances, but they also created many more again, racking up 13 wides and five shots dropped short. Though they never trailed, that left Kerry still close to land a sucker punch. Jackie Horgan and Amy O’Sullivan had the opportunity to deliver that blow midway through the second half, but on a day for defences, it was Offaly’s last line of defence that saved the day.
Emer Reynolds pulled off a superb double save, much to Sullivan’s delight.
“Everyone owes her a drink tonight, it was two worldies,” he beamed.
“If that goal went in you see the momentum go to Kerry and doubt starts to creep in. You start to think about the chances you’ve missed, wonder have we thrown it away, maybe Kerry get another one then and they going from being two down to two points up and momentum really swings. But what a save from Emer, she’s only come into the goals in the third round of the championship against Westmeath.
“She’s been a revelation ever since, even the last day against Antrim, some of the saves she made were incredible. Then when you have a goalie that can hit the ball 100 yards and release the pressure on everybody in the six backs, it’s an immense asset that we have”.
With that pressure building, both sides missed chances and the contest was in the melting pot with Offaly 0-11 to 0-10 in front after 55 minutes. Enter Grace Teehan, who had been the leading attacking light throughout. She scored two points to bring her tally to five, in between earning a free that Clodagh Leahy converted. That forced Kerry to chase another goal, a score they never looked like getting.
“Grace is a Soaring Star for a reason, she’s been carrying the can there for the last two years. She comes up with some unreal scores, she had 0-18 got before today, that’s three or four points per game which is massive for us, knowing that you have someone that’s as good as that,” Sullivan said.
Leahy finished the game with 0-7, though just two of those were from play while the accuracy she showed to nail three points from the sidelines in the opening minutes wasn’t replicated throughout the game. Kerry sharpshooters Patrice Diggin and Jackie Horgan, as well as Offaly’s Mairéad Teehan, also struggled to make the kind of attacking impact that would usually be expected.
“There was more in us but we just didn’t bring it out today,” bemoaned Kerry manager John Madden.
“Offaly really performed in the second half, we felt at half-time that we were in with a big shout. I suppose the goal chance was probably a kick for us, it would have given us a bit of momentum. But it’s one of those days that all you can do is dust yourself off and go again.
“When we got level on Offaly we couldn’t get the point ahead, they always came back at us. If we had got one step ahead it might have given us the driving force but every time they got the next one and that made the difference”.
The game was followed by a sensational senior final between Galway and Cork, a match which has been hailed across mainstream and social media as a classic. Offaly’s celebrations after this match began in earnest in Birr last night – Sullivan said that “it’ll be a big night, and a big week!” – but the Lorrha native also acknowledged that for Offaly, there are other rungs on the ladder that will have to be climbed before the Faithful County can think about trying to be competitive against the very top sides.
“Yeah, it’s a daunting task and it has to be done cleverly as well. There is a gap in senior between the top five teams and the rest, we now have to look at the next level above us – Wexford, Dublin, Clare, Limerick – and we need to go after them, to close the gap on them and get a couple of wins over them next year. There’s no point going up senior and then yo-yo-ing up and down and winning more intermediate All-Irelands,” he warned.
“We’ve had our day in the sun now, it’s about consistency and staying up in senior level. We’ve a lot of younger players, I think we’ve only two or three over the age of 25, there’s been a lot of work at underage.
“Declan Fogarty and Cormac Ginty had the U16s in an All-Ireland final this year, the minors were very unlucky with Declan Murray in a quarter-final, beaten after extra time. There’s great work being done in Offaly camogie and it’s about staying senior and progressing the girls through all the time, keeping the panel as the best panel you possibly can.
“Hopefully today will entice a few more that should be playing back as well and give them that encouragement that Offaly camogie is going in the right direction and that there is something worth playing for”.
