Paul Geaney was an influential figure in Kerry's powerful second half display yesterday. Introduced for his captain, he kicked three points and brought a new spark to the Kerry forward line.
In the Irish Examiner today, Tony McEntee couldn't understand how Geaney didn't start the game and suggested that Kieran Donaghy is easily marked by modern defences and is now a drag on Kerry's attacking fluency.
On Today with Sean O'Rourke this morning, Damien Lawlor told host Keelin Shanley that Geaney was struck down with an awkward problem.
He was unable to change his studs. Like a Formula One race on a wet day, where the right kind of tyres are indispensable, studs were an important consideration. On one of the wettest days of the year, he needed to get the right studs on, but his football boots weren't playing ball. He was unable to screw out the old ones.
The Croke Park pitch is very, very hard. And there's no give in it, and the conditions made it so greasy. So you had a greasy surface but rock hard underneath still. And players were mixing multi studs and long studs and one of Geaney's studs got caught in the boot and he couldn't get it out. So, he may not have excelled to the extent he did had he not got it out. But it took him maybe forty minutes to get it out.
Fortunately for Kerry, Geaney eventually got the studs he wanted and went on to thrive in the dreadful conditions.
