Positives in Final Defeat

"There’s different types of defeats. Leagues are not bad defeats. Because our games are about championship football."

So, it wasn't a bad defeat then... it's hard to argue with Damian Cassidy's post-match assessment. For the majority of this game, Derry had Kerry well within their sights, but just didn't display the edge, urgency or intensity in their game to go on and ensure they would lift the New Ireland trophy for the second successive year. Kerry cantered over the finishing line.

No harm done.

A low-key, subdued final in the end. It wasn't like this a year ago in the tight confines of Parnell Park, but in a three-quarters empty Croke Park yesterday, the best team won. Not only over the 70 minutes in the Final, but over the whole of the league campaign, Kerry were deserved victors.

This was anything but a 'do or die' battle. The game lacked a championship intensity, the cut and thrust of summer football. Both Cassidy and his counterpart Jack O'Connor have been preaching - to anyone who cared to listen - about how teams are judged on championship success. League football is just a prelude. Yesterday, they were true to their word.

Despite defeat, the Derry management team will be happy enough with how their team performed. Missing a host of regular starters, they coped well with a seemingly ever-expanding Kerry attacking threat. Cassidy was philosophical in defeat:

"The game itself when you come to Croke Park and play in a league final you want to win it but from the outset I was clear about what we needed to achieve. To get here was a bonus. The game was there for us to push on, certainly in the second half. If we had got ourselves a point ahead in the middle of the second half it would have created an opportunity to push on. In terms of the overall campaign we have been quite successful."

Kerry, for their part, will be pleased that they won the game in a comfortable enough manner, without having to push into the high gears and Jack O'Connor feels that there is much more to come from his side:

"It is good to win matches where you don’t play very well. What am I most pleased about? Winning the game without emptying the tank. I think there might be a bit more in us. I thought we played good football during the league. We came up here, we go home with a win."

The Oaklfeafers started off brightly, early points from Paddy Bradley and Chrissy McKaigue gave them an early lead. Indeed it looked like the threat of the two Bradleys and Mark Lynch would provide Derry with a match-winning formula.

Then came the game's defining score however; Kerry's first of the match. It proved to be their most important. Donnacha Walsh cashed in on a high catch and quick lay-off from the giant Michael Quirke to calmly slot the ball to the net.

The score ushered echoes of last year's decider. But a similar outcome never materialised. Kerry couldn't pull away, yet Derry couldn't overtake them.

The injury suffered to Paddy Bradley during the first-half meant that the Glenullin man would require substituting. It took the spring out of what had been a lively Derry attack, yet Derry continued to impress in the opening period. They were picking up the majority of breaks in midfield and Eoin Bradley and Mark Lynch continued to put Kerry on the back-foot.

Kevin McCloy was impressively winning his duel with Kieran Donaghy, while Sean Leo McGoldrick and Enda Lynn drove forward at every opportunity. Despite all this, the Oakleafers found themselves a point down at the break. This could be attributed to two things. 1) some wayward Derry shooting; 2) the influence of Tommy Walsh.

It would be an understatement to suggest that the big Kerry forward was proving to be a handful with Kevin McGuckin and McCloy both trying in vain to curtail his dominance. The 20-year old was the recipient of last year's Young Footballer of the Year award, and if he carries this form into the summer more accolades will come his way. Walsh plundered two points, but it was his ability to win possession, draw frees, and set up scores that made him the obvious choice for yesterday's man of the match.

Derry's challenge faltered in the second half, though it never looked like fading out of sight either. Kerry demonstrated their wealth of talent by bringing on Dara Ó Sé, Tadgh Kennelly and David Moran, and they began to dominate the midfield exchanges. The supply to the Derry forward line dried up, leaving Mark Lynch to keep them in touch with some accurate free-taking. However, Kerry always seemed able to break forward at will to reply with a score of their own. Derry couldn't achieve parity.

Jack O'Connor managed to sum this up perfectly:

"We hung in there, I don’t think we played exceptionally well, but any time Derry came back into it we pulled away."

With four weeks to go before their championship campaign opens against Monaghan, Derry will have to look at how they once again failed to penetrate their attack against top-class opposition. They struggled to link effectively between defence and attack, repeating the problems shown against Kerry in Bellaghy last month. There were large gaps in front of the Derry full-foward line, as the half-forwards struggled against a very strong Kerry half-back line. Paul Murphy and Brian Mullan couldn't get on the ball enough to effect the game.

The goal required to win the match never came and it never looked like coming; Kerry goalkeeper Diarmuid Murphy strolled off the field untested. Against Dublin at Parnell Park, Derry could have scored four goals, but since then, that incisive nature has been missing from the Derry attack. They are not as fluid or as pacy. Kerry squeezed them out. But there's something for the training pitch in the next few weeks!

We must remember also that Derry were missing men like Enda Muldoon, Niall McCusker and Barry McGoldrick yesterday (not to mention Lockhart, Cartin and Patsy Bradley). These men have had excellent league campaigns, and their absence had an effect. When considering this backdrop going up against the best team in the country, yesterday's performance can be viewed as a positive one.

Damian Cassidy was keen though to stress how positive the whole NFL campaign has been for his side in his first season in charge:

"The positive is we got to a final with so many new players in the panel. We introduced nine new players, used 31 players in the league and I feel our position has been very much validated. We received a number of injuries over the last couple of weeks. I don’t know if we had been in this position last year could we have coped with that many injuries. That haunted us in the championship last year."

There's that word 'championship' again. Now is when the preparations will start in earnest. But they had already started in the damp squib that was yesterday's league decider and the Derry management will have learned a lot from yesterday's game. Further options were looked at all over the pitch (against formidable opposition), and some key areas will need worked on. Derry showed signs of a team that are ready to take the next step but Cassidy knows that only summer success will prove it:

"The question is: 'Do we think we are good enough to push on and be here in August and September?' The answers have to be provided later in the year. But is the quality there? I think it is."

Time will tell...

DERRY : B Gillis; K McGuckin, K McCloy, G O’Kane; C McKaigue (0-1) , B McGuigan, SL McGoldrick; F Doherty, J Diver; E Lynn (0-1), P Murphy (0-1) , B Mullan; E Bradley (0-4, one free), P Bradley (0-2, one free), M Lynch (0-4, three frees). Subs: J Kielt (0-1, free) for P Bradley (23 mins), P Bradley for Mullan (39 mins), D McBride for O’Kane (47 mins), S Bradley (0-1) for Murphy (49 mins), R Dillon for McBride (yellow card, 69 mins).