Kerry 1-13 Monaghan 0-13: AT TIMES Monaghan stretched this match taut but it never broke. All-Ireland champions Kerry, on their mission of rehabilitation, took on the team that had come closest to beating them last year and, whether forewarned or simply too good, had a more comfortable margin in hand this time even if the goal that would have forced a replay remained a possibility during the dying minutes of injury-time.
On a weekend when the standard of the football played seemed to leave even experienced commentators shocked, it took yesterday's last round-three match of the All-Ireland football qualifiers to restore a sense of a quickening championship.
As has happened throughout so many seasons, Kerry emerged intact at the end but Monaghan, with no element of surprise and burdened with weightier expectations, battled until referee Maurice Deegan spread his arms wide and signalled that the quarter-finals line-up was complete.
For all their feistiness and the genuine concern they caused the champions, Monaghan never generated the sense of impending sensation they managed last year.
Unlike 12 months ago they did not build a lead and hang on stubbornly but instead from the moment in the 13th minute that they lost their early advantage Séamus McEnaney's team were chasing the match and, like a chased bus, it always moved on just before they could scramble aboard.
McEnaney dolefully referred to the chances his team had squandered in the second half when the match was poised at 0-10 each.
Most agonising of these for the Monaghan manager was presumably the 54th-minute chance created by Ciarán Hanratty, exploiting, as he did more spectacularly last year, Pádraig Reidy's lack of pace.
With the option of an unmarked Rory Woods, Hanratty steamed in from the left and went for goal himself but the ball flew wide.
Within seconds Colm Cooper had exercised a similar option and if Kieran Donaghy ultimately thought better of the goal attempt his fisted point represented a theoretical four-point turnaround.
It symbolised Kerry's ability to turn around and hit back whenever threatened. Six times they scored within two minutes of conceding at the other end.
Donaghy ended up as the television Man of the Match and deserved the award. His aerial ability caused constant problems for the Monaghan defence and in the second half Vincent Corey was relocated from full forward to the full-back line to try and counter the threat.
It had become so pressing a problem because Kerry did very well at centrefield.
Darragh Ó Sé celebrated his 70th championship match - next week, barring injury, he will surpass John O'Leary's record for Dublin - by anchoring a greatly improved display in the sector after last month's Munster final defeat, although the Kerry manager Pat O'Shea wasn't convinced after the match that Cork had done as well as had been portrayed four weeks previously.
Anyway the result was a far better flow of ball into the forwards and, even if Monaghan did Trojan work at the back, Kerry could easily have scored more and could counter McEnaney's regrets with their own close call as early as the 12th minute.
Dermot McArdle lost the ball in his own square, allowing Donnacha Walsh crack a shot off the bar before Donaghy's attempt at the rebound was blocked for a 45 that Bryan Sheehan - not as unerring as usual from his dead-ball activities - duly dispatched.
O'Shea expressed himself happy with the team's reconfigured attack and the eventual deployment to the 40 of Cooper, who had struggled to cash in from corner forward and triggered further Kerry frustration when he missed a penalty in the 21st minute after Donnacha Walsh was taken down by Dessie Mone.
Out the field, as last year, Cooper showed that his vision on the ball can be as useful to the team as his score-taking on the inside.
Tommy Walsh shared the target duties with Donaghy and although he took time to get to the pace of the game - he was blocked four times in the first half - he finished well with two points from play.
Declan O'Sullivan made his comeback and if not as incandescent as usual he will have benefited from the match-time even if outscored by his initial marker Gary McQuaid, a late call-up to Monaghan's starting 15.
Another corollary of Kerry's superiority in the middle was that Monaghan were living on scraps. There was an absorbing tussle between Marc Ó Sé and Tomás Freeman, and although the latter got on to some good ball he was well marshalled by the Footballer of the Year in the first half.
After the break Freeman did better, shooting two points from play and drawing the foul for Paul Finlay's 52nd-minute free.
At half-time Monaghan were flattered to be just three points down, 0-3 to 0-6, but they regrouped well and put in a storming third quarter to draw level. Woods, now moved to full forward, kicked two points and worried Kerry's full backs as a target full forward.
Yet it always appeared as if Kerry could raise the pace and in the 58th-minute Darragh Ó Sé combined with Tommy Griffin, making a galvanic entry as a replacement, to unleash Eoin Brosnan on a swerving run, after which he laid off to Donaghy, whose rifle-shot into the far corner of Monaghan's net put Kerry five points ahead, 1-12 to 0-10.
Instead of that being the signal for fiesta time, Monaghan dug in and without looking likely to overturn the match, pursued Kerry all the way to the line, which the champions breasted with a bit in hand. They return to Croke Park next Saturday to face Galway.
KERRY: 1 D Murphy; 3 M Ó Sé, 4 T O'Sullivan, 2 P Reidy; 5 T Ó Sé (captain), 6 A O'Mahony (0-1), 7 K Young; 8 D Ó Sé, 9 S Scanlon (0-1); 12 D Walsh, 13 D O'Sullivan, 15 B Sheehan (0-5, two frees and 45); 11 C Cooper (0-2, one free), 14 K Donaghy (1-2), 10 T Walsh (0-2).
Subs: 17 E Brosnan for D Walsh (42 mins), 21 T Griffin for Scanlon (57 mins), 19 Darren O'Sullivan for T Walsh (64 mins), 10 T Walsh for Donaghy (73 mins).
MONAGHAN: 1 P McBennett; 2 D Mone, 3 JP Mone, D McArdle; 5 D Freeman (captain), 26 G McQuaid (0-2), 7 C McManus; 8 E Lennon (0-1), 9 D Clerkin; 11 P Finlay (0-2, both frees), 14 R Woods (0-2), 10 S Gollogly; 13 C Hanratty, 12 V Corey (0-1), 15 T Freeman (0-5, three frees).
Subs: 6 D Hughes for Clerkin (57 mins), 19 R Ronaghan for McManus (59 mins), 22 P McGuigan for Hughes (63 mins), 30 S Smyth for Gollogly (70 mins).
YELLOW CARDS: Kerry: Donaghy (23 mins), D Ó Sé (32 mins), Reidy (34 mins), Declan O'Sullivan (50 mins). Monaghan: JP Mone (23 mins), Clerkin (32 mins), McQuaid (49 mins), Gollogly (43 mins).
RED CARDS: None.
Attendance: 38,320
Referee: Maurice Deegan (Laois).
