NFL kerry v Fermanagh 25 feb '07

[kerrygold]

A good win for kerry to-day,2 league points in the bag.

The three sendings off were of the rediculous variety considering it was not a dirty game.
Yellow and red cards being thrown around by refs are making a mockery of the game.

kerry started brightly and were 1-03 up very quickly the goal coming from mfr following a tap down from donaghy.

kerrys game became disjoined after the dismissal of donaghy.
they showed plenty of fight,heart and hunger with dara o se being emense again at the midfield,the outstanding player on view,my motm.

tomas seemed to pull a hammer,but pulled up straight away and proberly minimised the damaged.

sheehan was slightly of par with the free taking missing a few he would normally get but kicked a great point from play 40 yards out on the right.

reidy was tenacious in defence,i wonder is he a bit small?

not sure about quill,his heart didnt seem to be in the game,he was very poor,you would wonder if a player who left the kerry panel has the heart to win an all-ireland in the white hot heat of croker.

one big plus is that mfr is about 100% more advanced than this time last year,i thought he was superb to-day.

kerry wont lack from hunger or fight this year,they seem at this early stage to be well up for it.

dara was in a different class to marty mcgrath and the highly acclaimed barry owens who moved to midfield in the second half,neither could live with him in the air.

[owenabue]

The match report from the Examiner today: www.irishexaminer.com/text/story.asp?j=12389573&p=yz39xx4z&n=12390072

[watchdahop]

Fermanagh sounded no threat from the radio.
Two more red cards though.
Donaghy would want to learn his lesson. He will get a month according to Sean Walsh.
Tomas as well out for a few weeks with a torn hammer.
Limerick at home should be winnable but Donegal away looks tough.
From the radio it sounded like Reidy and Young played well which is good news.
Good to hear MFR is in good form as he looked off colour against Cork

[kerrygold]

kerry were never going lose this one,watchdahop,they never had to leave second gear.

if kieran had walked away he would have been ok,but he went back and got envolved.Having said that many refs would have booked the two players and moved on.

kieran would want to start concentrating on minding his own business,he was going around yesterday checking on the opositions injured players like he was their physio.

its all part of the learning curve for him,this will be his hardest year in a kerry jersey,he will just have to keep his head down and play ball and keep his business to himself.
he has massive potential inside there,very aware of whats happening around him,you couldnt ask for anymore than that.
Full backs seem to be punching the ball away from him which will result with a huge amount of lose ball for the gooch and mfr to feed of.He was a bit like niall quinn yesterday breaking high ball down for smaller forwards to play off.

[seamus]

Here's a thought.
Under Pat Flanagan's excellence as a physical trainer for the last 3 years Kerry suffered no significant muscular injury of note. Pre-hab rather than rehab was the mantra he was preaching in 2004 before the rugby boys made in fashionable.
He designed the training and recovery sessions to prevent injuries and was careful not to over train which leads to muscle fatigue and makes muscles more susceptible to injury.
This was a big change from the previous regime.
I am completely jumping the gun here but Tomas pulled a hamstring quite badly with as far as a know little history of dodgy hamstrings.
Will Pat O'Shea and John Sugrue be able to maintain this excellence going forward or are we likely to see a return to players missing big games with injuries?
Only time will tell.

As far as i recall the big injuries under flanagan were Moynihan (ankle bone) and Dara Se (bone). I can't remember us missing a big player for a big game apart from these.

[mickmack]

I was at the basketball final in Tallaght and Donaghy was mouthing non stop......... evntually Quirke told him to calm down

[kerrygold]

it might be connected to the bad bang on the hip he got v mayo in the first league seamus.

i'd reserve judgement for a while seamus on that one.