Rangers claim title as champs 'feale' Southern discomfort

Wednesday November 14 2007

FEALE RANGERS 1-4 SOUTH KERRY 0-6They don't rate us. They don't respect us. Those words, printed in bright red on a poster in the Feale Rangers dressing room, in many ways told the story of this year's county final. Largely written off, they came into the game under the radar with a devastatingly effective game plan.

The Feale Rangers management won the tactical battle hands down. This was a management that understood where their weaknesses lay and turned them to their advantage. They had a lack of scoring forwards so they started with two midfielders amongst the forwards, crowded the midfield and suffocated South Kerry who it seemed didn't know, or weren't prepared for, what hit them.

It took South Kerry until the second half to get to grips with what Feale Rangers were doing, but even then they seemed badly rattled taking just one score from play in their second half period of dominance and that from a midfielder, not their much vaunted strike force. This is more of a tribute to the magnificent defending by the North Kerry side than a criticism of South's forwards there wasn't a single defender for Feale Rangers who didn't have an exceptional game.

Selected at full-forward it didn't take long for Anthony Maher to find his way to the middle third of the field, where he along with Maurice Corridan, Brendáin Whelan and Paul Galvin proceeded to make life miserable for South's midfield partnership of Bryan Sheehan and John Sugrue.

South were first onto the scoreboard with a Ronan Hussey free, but it was Feale Rangers who were playing all the football. Anthony Maher fielded a ball at midfield and found Noel Kennelly (playing now at full-forward) with a long ball. Stephen O'Sullivan fouled Kennelly who pointed with the resultant free. The score would be indicative of Feale Rangers' attacking play - Kennelly would be Rangers chief ball winner in the forward division.

The ploy would work to devastating effect on seven minutes, when Maher again found Kennelly with a long ball, Kennelly flicked the ball on to his fellow Listowel man Brian Scanlon who rounded Adrian O'Connell and stuck sweetly to the back of the net. If South didn't know before, they knew now that they were in a real game.

Rangers continued to dominate the centre and continued to surge forward, but poor shooting prevented them from pushing further ahead. South struck back through a long range Bryan Sheehan free on 13 minutes. On the rare occasions that South did get the ball up near their opponents goal they were faced with an almost impenetrable layer of defence.

Maher continued his magnificent display at centre-field and with ten minutes remaining in the half, was at the start of another quality score for the Rangers Derek Galvin pointing at the end a great move, which also involved Maurice Corridan and Noel Kennelly. Both sides had further chances for scores before half-time Feale, through a magnificent Brian Scanlon effort, took theirs, South Kerry only found keeper Shane Quinn's hands with theirs.

With a four point lead at the break Feale Rangers, while expecting a backlash, must have felt reasonably confident that they would have enough of a lead given the low scoring nature of the game. So it was to prove.

By now South had finally gotten to grips with Feale Rangers midfield ploy they appeared more assertive, determined not to give up their crown without a fight. They surged forwards again and again in search of the scores that would bring them back into the game, but they were proving very hard to come by.

They got their first of the half through a Bryan Sheehan free reasonably early in the half, but were having a torrid afternoon with the boot otherwise. Sheehan missed a free, while Sean Fogarty was desperately unlucky to find the outside of the post, before Sheehan made amends with a well taken free approaching the quarter hour.

When Renard man John Sugrue got South's only score from play to make it a single point game there was a feeling in the ground that South were poised to push on. With the introduction of Maurice Fitzgerald and another point from a free by Ronan Hussey this feeling looked to be justified, but Feale Rangers didn't come this far to be beaten. They dug deep, began to win some vital ball at midfield and when a score was needed, like many times already this year, it was their captain Eamonn Fitzmaurice who would come up trumps.

With four minutes remaining Fitzmaurice found himself in possession around forty yards out from goal, with no hesitation and no nerves he went for gold and was richly rewarded with their winning score. South had one last chance to salvage a draw, with a 45 in injury time, but Bryan Sheehan was unable to resurrect his heroics from last year's final.

Feale were more than deserving winners of the title, they got the only goal, they scored more points from play and crucially they had by far the meaner defence.