Kingdom targeted Bastick to bring blue tower crashing down -- Donaghy
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Wednesday August 05 2009
Kieran Donaghy yesterday revealed how Kerry targeted Dublin full-back Denis Bastick as the key to their crushing All-Ireland quarter-final victory.
Donaghy, still visibly hobbling as he performed his 'maor uisce' duties during the game, said shifting Declan O'Sullivan to the edge of the square and playing everything through him provided the openings that Dublin didn't respond to.
Bastick, who lunged at Donaghy with his foot during one of Donaghy's pitch visits to dispense water in the second half, was under enormous pressure from the off as O'Sullivan took him on at every opportunity.
"We targeted Denis Bastick and we targeted him as a player who would be suited to marking a player like myself or Tommy Walsh, but wouldn't be suited to marking Declan O'Sullivan.
"Declan is a player of great pace and mobility and he's a good ball-winner. He went in there and he was awesome for us," Donaghy told Newstalk.
"He was winning ball, bringing players into the game and taking his own scores. That's where it hinged. Dublin were saying that they had a full-back now and that they were sorted there, but we knew that Declan was the man for the job."
On Bastick's late challenge that sent Colm Cooper flying into the hoardings at the back of the Davin End goals after scoring a point Donaghy said 'Gooch' was well used to such treatment.
"I saw the incident, but the 'Gooch' is tough out and he's taken plenty of those. He's playing inter-county football for seven years and he'll have to take more of those.
"This group of players is the closest group I have ever been involved with in any sport. We have been through so much together -- the highs of winning All-Irelands to the lows of losing two to Tyrone. Colm Cooper was doubted by sections of the media and he put on a masterclass on his hallowed turf. It was tough on him and he proved that he is the best attacker in the last 30 or 40 years in football."
On the reputed chaos in the Kerry squad, Donaghy again said they were a gross exaggeration.
"Those stories get legs. You hear that a fella had a go at another fella and that always happens at training. But someone rings a friend to tell him and he rings 10 more and by the time it gets up to Dublin we're taking sawn-off shotguns to each other in the middle of the field!"
"I don't know about them, but we were ready for this game. We came into it perfectly, there was no one talking about us and there was a lot of pressure on the Dubs because they fell at the same hurdle last year and they didn't want to let that happen to them again.
"If you can think about it too much it can come back to bite you. We got the good start and after 10 or 15 minutes they looked like they didn't know what was going to happen for the rest of the game. We kept the foot on the throttle and drove it on from there."
Donaghy now has four weeks to allow the fractured bone in his foot to heal sufficiently, but he'll be under pressure to reclaim his place, especially after the performances of Darran O'Sullivan and substitute Tadhg Kennelly.
Meanwhile, Australian newspapers are reporting that Kennelly could be in line to make a quick return to the AFL ... if Kerry can go all the way and reclaim Sam.
Sydney coach Paul Roos said yesterday: ''He's one of my favourites of all time -- people and players. 'If he rang me and said, 'Roosy, can we have a chat about next year?' Absolutely I'd sit down and talk to him about next year if he wanted to come back.
''If he rings up, I wouldn't say, 'no, Tadhg, we don't want you', I would say, 'yeah, Tadhg, what do you want to do? How's your body feeling? Why don't you fly back, or I'll fly over and see you ... let's check you out', so we certainly wouldn't dismiss it.''
- Colm Keys
