One step too far. As summer crossed over to autumn, the breath was finally sucked out of Kildare's football challenge in a remarkable Leinster championship semi-final second replay at Croke Park yesterday which evoked a cauldron of tribal emotions - resulting in four dismissals - and finished with Meath, the great survivors, extending their defence of provincial and All-Ireland crowns by another 13 days, at least.
After 240 minutes of cut-and-thrust championship endeavour between the two sides, Meath, by a two-point margin, earned a date with Offaly in the Leinster final on Saturday week. But at a price. Mark O'Reilly and Darren Fay, both sent off yesterday, and Graham Geraghty, already with a month's suspension on his head after the first replay, will miss the next match. That's the future, another day's work. Yesterday, Meath never trailed in the entire game and, yet, as the final seconds ticked down, were under the cosh from Kildare, a team who had failed to convert a second-half penalty and who were also reduced to 13-men when Davy Dalton and Brian Murphy were dismissed by referee Pat O'Toole. However, Meath were the ultimate masters, and in Ollie Murphy had the game's outstanding performer. Murphy scored 1-4, all from play, and his confidently taken goal in the 54th minute gave Meath a six-point lead for the second time.
Meath surprised everyone by selecting Martin O'Connell to fill the vacancy left in the team's selection at right corner forward. Colm Coyle moved to the attack, and a major reshuffle ensued in defence where only three players held down their original places. O'Connell slotted in at his customary corner back posting.
As a match, it didn't have the skill factor of the previous two engagements. The greasy pitch, admittedly, didn't help, and there was a huge amount of tension in the air from the start.
Referee O'Toole could also claim that he would have needed X-ray vision to witness all the shenanigans going on around the field, but his interpretation of the rules, too, caused a deal of frustration among the players and at least a couple of those given their marching orders will feel mightily aggrieved.
Dalton's dismissal, in the 16th minute, was probably the harshest of all and set the trend for subsequent sendings-off. The Kildare defender collided with Brendan Reilly in what seemed to be nothing more than a fifty-fifty challenge situation. Indeed, Dalton was the first to draw the referee's attention to Reilly's prone state (he suffered concussion).
Remarkably, though, O'Toole booked Dalton, then, realising the extent of Reilly's problems, briefly consulted with an umpire and changed his decision to a dismissal. At that stage, Meath were very much in command. Kildare were playing like a team who had left all their self-belief in the dressing-room and some silly, unforced mistakes were made - like giving away possession from poorly directed short frees. Such profligacy was heavily penalised by Meath, who had opened the scoring in the sixth minute when John McDermott was first to react to Reilly's shot that rebounded off an upright. McDermott fisted the ball over to kick-start Meath and, when Murphy kicked over his third point in the 23rd minute, the Meathmen were already 0-7 to 0-1 ahead.
Early on, Reilly looked to be the man who would hand most problems to Kildare's defence. He was showing to the ball ahead of Dalton and, apart from kicking two points himself, was also feeding others. Strangely, Meath waited six minutes after Reilly's participation in the match was prematurely concluded before replacing him with PJ Gillic - rather than Jody Devine, the hero of the first replay. The substitution, however, didn't have too much of an impact and, if anything, Kildare gradually worked their way back into the game.
The second dismissals in the 31st minute (when Meath were leading 07 to 0-3) resulted in Mark O'Reilly and Brian Murphy leaving the fray. Just four minutes earlier, the pair had been cautioned for carrying on their own personal vendetta under the nose of an umpire and, so, when they rolled around on the edge of the small square a short time later, they could blame no-one but themselves for exiting the field.
With just 27 players left on the pitch, wide spaces opened up, and Kildare, with Buckley especially beginning to threaten Meath's midfield pairing of John McDermott and Jimmy McGuinness, started to benefit. Glen Ryan put in trojan work and, alongside him, Anthony Rainbow (keeping Trevor Giles surprisingly subdued) acted as defender and attacker. The hesitancy that for some reason marred their early exchanges left Kildare, and a Buckley point from a 45, followed by a fine long point from Martin Lynch, after an uncharacteristic O'Connell error, enabled Kildare to nudge to just two points adrift. But, as if again to remind Kildare that complacency doesn't win matches, Meath ended a spell of 12 minutes without a score by slotting over two points from a Giles free and a long-range effort from McGuinness to secure a four points lead at half-time, by a 0-9 to 0-5 margin.
The deficit was very nearly wiped out in one stroke within a minute of the restart. Meath's full back Fay fouled Graven in the square, but from the resulting penalty, Eddie McCormack - who was well shackled throughout by Donal Curtis, moved out to wing-back in the prematch reshuffle - struck the ball over the bar. Three points still separated the sides when the fourth - and final - dismissal occurred. Fay was sent-off in the 51st minute for an off-the-ball incident with Lynch.
Indeed, Meath's McDermott was somewhat fortunate to escape with a mere booking two minutes later, in the 53rd minute, when Lynch was floored for celebrating a goal that wasn't. The Kildare forward had been pulled up for over-carrying a micro-second before blasting the ball to the net, and his exuberance wasn't appreciated by some in the Meath fold.
Just a minute or so after Meath escaped the prospect of a numerical inferiority, Murphy showed the coolness of a veteran to score his side's goal. Enda McManus played an excellent long ball out of defence to the fleet-footed attacker and he finished the job with some panache. That goal put Meath 1-10 to 0-7 in front. Buckley, with yet another 45, and Giles swapped points before Kildare found the net to ensure an interesting final 10 minutes. McCormack, seeking recompense for only getting a point from his earlier penalty kick, shot with venom. The ball crashed back off the crossbar. Willie McCreery's shot was half-blocked across the goalmouth and Declan Kerrigan and Graven both pounced, Kerrigan getting the vital touch for the goal.
The fight-back gathered momentum. Buckley successfully converted another 45, his fourth, and left just a point separating the teams when kicking a huge free from all of 55 yards.
However, there was to be no more drama, no more extra-time, no further replay. Fittingly, it was Murphy, who had weaved his magic in the Meath attack for much of the game, who landed the final point of the match. Equally fitting, Devine, the man who'd almost single-handedly brought Meath back from the dead the last day, made an important cameo appearance. Introduced for Gillic with only two minutes remaining, Devine, with the freshest pair of legs on the pitch, gathered the ball in his own defence and made a solo run of some 50 yards before dispatching the ball into the Kildare zone. The whistle followed, and Meath, still the kings of Leinster, had progressed.
