Joe Brolly: Only kryptonite can stop Clifford now

ARRIVING into Croke Park for the game, the talk was all about the pitch being mowed in a bewildering array of diamonds and crosses. “Jimmy’s been here. It’s the Donegal game plan,” said the glamorous brunette. After 15 minutes of the first half, I said to her, “Donegal have a game-plan?”

Jimmy’s audacious experiment to turn a squad of ordinary enough footballers into All-Ireland champions has failed. His masterplan depended on a system that no other team had been able to compete with, a system that disguised the individual shortcomings of his players.

Kerry hacked it, planting a virus in it. They kept three players in the middle third, preventing the lightning counter-attacks that Donegal depend on. They swamped the top of the defensive arc where Donegal create most of their scores. They fouled tactically. They defused the Donegal kick-out. They refused to solo into contact or crowd each other, moving the ball fast through multiple hands.

For a team that depends on turnovers, Donegal couldn’t even get a tackle in. A system like Jimmy’s is awesome when it works, but when it doesn’t, there is no plan B.

With the system nullified, Kerry’s superior footballers were at their ease, quickly going to that elevated plain that great champions get to, like Jim Gavin’s Dublin.

Before the game, I chatted with a group of Kerry supporters who were unusually worried. That’s the thing about this new game. No one can predict what is going to happen.

They were fearful of Donegal and Jimmy. A barrister friend of mine, Paul Bacon, went to Vegas for the superfight between Ricky Hatton and Floyd Mayweather and sat a few rows behind David Beckham and Tommy ‘The Hit Man’ Hearns.

Like many in the boxing fraternity, he thought Hatton, with his workaholic attacking style and constant body punching, would wear Mayweather down and defeat him. Until the opening bell.

“When the bell went and the fighters moved towards each other, I knew Hatton was doomed. Mayweather was balletic. Perfect. He was a superhuman against a human.” Which is precisely what happened from the throw-in here.

Kerry were more or less perfect. As they purred through the first half like Roger Federer against the no. 78 seed, Donegal disintegrated into agitation and confusion.

Brendan McCole was in David Clifford’s face from the off and Donegal’s hopes were rising when he did not get a single touch in the first nine minutes.

In the tenth, he got the ball way outside the arc and immediately launched a massive two-pointer over the bar. 0-7 to 0-3. A minute later, his second touch. Again under huge pressure, he swung over a two pointer. 0-9 to 0-3.

For his third touch, in the 12th minute, he was fouled and Seánie O’Shea popped over a free that in his world is easy peasy. In the 15th, David scored a beautiful one pointer, which was about as much relief as Donegal got all day.

Then, after the hooter, when Donegal had brought it to within five, he sealed their doom with another extraordinary two pointer. “Here comes death,” I said to the glamorous brunette as he took the shot, and come it did.

Kerry’s pure football was frightening. Magnificent handling, great kicking, excellent decision-making, decorated with some awesome moments of skill and speed.

Gavin White doing his greyhound routine, Joe O’Connor a delight, Paudie having fun. Their alertness to everything going on around them was something I have not seen for many years.

Donegal closed the gap to four points in the 54th minute, but no one thought a comeback was on.

Seánie O’Shea stroked over a two-point free, David Clifford scored his ninth point with a brilliant solo run and long-range finish. Then, in the 64th minute, something amazing happened.

David Clifford was sent clean through on goals, went round the keeper and missed, like Superman dropping a woman who had fallen from a high building. After that it was ‘Hopeless Long Balls Into the Square’ time for Donegal.

As we were leaving the park, the glamorous brunette said, “Kerry are only getting started.”