Whereas Kerry will be buzzing on the back of their performance at Croke Park yesterday, Tyrone will be wondering where it all went wrong after the All-Ireland quarter-final meeting between the sides.
Most neutral observers expected a very close contest at GAA HQ, with the two counties having shared some titanic battles down through the years. It was very different on this occasion.
Kerry were clearly the better side throughout, leading by three points at the interval. They made their dominance pay to a greater degree in the second half, essentially running Tyrone off the pitch en route to a 12-point victory.
An absolutely incredible pass from David Clifford here 🐐pic.twitter.com/Hu8Hz3NOto
— Balls.ie (@ballsdotie) July 1, 2023
Kerry probably established themselves as All-Ireland favourites with this performance. As for Tyrone, some serious questions will be asked about their failure to show up in such a big fixture
Tomás Ó Sé aims dig at Tyrone after Kerry loss
Tyrone had largely underperformed in this championship, with only a last gasp missed free from Westmeath in the final round robin game even granting them passage into the knockout rounds. They dispatched a poor Donegal side last week, although it was expected they would raise their game for a fixture against Kerry.
Their failure to do so has resulted in plenty of cheeky comments from The Kingdom, including one from Marc Ó Sé on GAAGO yesterday.
The two teams have some recent history, with their All-Ireland semi-final in 2021 being postponed due to a covid outbreak in the Tyrone camp. The Ulster side would go on to win the rearranged fixture and lift the Sam Maguire soon after.
Speaking on RTÉ this afternoon, Tomás Ó Sé cracked up his fellow panelists when cheekily questioning if that outbreak might have had an impact on their performance yesterday. It went down a treat with Lee Keegan especially, who burst into laughter after the comment was made.
Ó Sé: I'll be trying to beat [Kerry] down now and put a cap on it. They were excellent.
I think coming into it we were expecting a close battle. Tyrone came into it and looking down there early on they were in everybody's face, we thought this was going to be a cracker.
The first half was close enough, but this was Kerry's best defensive performance in a long, long time...
They absolutely bullied Tyrone off the field in that second half, they just couldn't live with them in any passage of the game. From a Kerry point of view, it was that work rate, the tenacity, off the ball stuff. The Jason Foleys and Diarmuid O'Connor's, they seem to be timing it perfect.
I think Tyrone will be disgusted. I'd say it was long covid they got! There has to be some explanation for it.
Keegan: He's been dying for that one!
He had that one in the back pocket for a while.
Kerry will certainly be taking plenty of satisfaction out of that result when you considering how things went for them in the same fixture a couple of years ago.
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