For around the first century of the GAA, they were hardly mapped and met just twice in championship football (1930 and 1979). Results went along expected lines. Monaghan managed just nine points in those two games and conceded 8-25.
To this day, Monaghan still haven’t beaten Kerry in championship football but the true tale of the tape runs a little deeper than that. In the five championship meetings, going back to their famous All-Ireland semi-final in 1985, Kerry have had a cushion of more than a score just once while there have been two draws.
Kerry are the goose Monaghan threaten but cannot cook.
They’ve had their chances. Ask different generations of Monaghan footballers what their best opportunity was to beat Kerry and you’ll get different answers. The 2018 ‘Super 8s’ game in Clones where Kieran Donaghy fed David Clifford for a late equalising goal as part of a symbolic changing of the guard is an obvious starting point, even if it wasn’t a knockout game.
Others will point to the drawn All-Ireland semi-final of 1985, a game famous for Eamonn McEneaney’s brilliant late equalising free. The man himself believes they should have been next to out of sight by the break.
“We were National League champions and that had given us a big lift that we could get to that level,” McEneaney remembered.
“And earlier that year we played them in the opening of the lights in ’Blayney which was a very unique thing. They were All-Ireland champions and we were league champions and we beat them.
“It wasn’t a championship game and I wouldn’t say we felt we had the measure of them, but we felt we had a good chance.
“So going into that game we didn’t go in with hope, we went in knowing we had a good chance of beating them and that was reflected in the game. We probably should have taken them that day though in the second half we didn’t perform as well as we should have.
Kerry’s Jack O’Shea fields a high ball against Monaghan during the 1985 All-Ireland SFC semi-final. Photo: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
“At half-time they were lucky to be as close as they were to us. We were 1-5 to 1-1 up and it should have been more. We’d a goal chance they cleared off the line. Their goal came from a shot for a point from, I think, John Kennedy. It hit the top of the post and dropped right to Ger Power who was in the right place at the right time and scored.
“We were only four points up at half-time and that wasn’t a true reflection. We should have been maybe eight points up. Then the second half came, they must have gotten a rattle from Mick O’Dwyer at half-time and it was all guns blazing. It was tit for tat until the finish; they’d get a point, we’d pull it back.” The replay got away from them early and Monaghan couldn’t recover.
“You know yourself [the talk was], ‘You missed the boat’. That was the famous thing at the time when you drew with a big team, that you missed the boat and that probably would have played on our minds we didn’t make great start in the replay and they went 2-3 to no score up I think 2-4 to 0-5 at half-time. We just couldn’t get close enough.”
That Monaghan team had the CV to tackle Kerry. As well as winning the National League, parts of that Monaghan team also won Ulster in ’79 and would go on to win another Anglo-Celt in 1988.
But when Monaghan almost ambushed Kerry in 2007, they had no such credentials. Kerry had been idle for six weeks while Monaghan and Séamus McEnaney schemed. Tommy Freeman and Ciarán Hanratty caused problems.
Monaghan’s Vinny Corey of Monaghan in action against Kerry’s Kieran Donaghy during the Super 8s match at Clones in 2018. Photo: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Current Farney manager Vinny Corey was used at full-forward instead of his more regular posting in defence. But in the end, Kerry wriggled off the hook and Tomás Ó Se fisted the winning score.
“It’s like having your heart being ripped out without an anaesthetic,” McEnaney said after coming within a whisker of a classic championship upset.
Monaghan looked deep into Kerry’s soul the following year when they lost by a goal. But for them 2007 sticks in the craw.
As they ascended up through the football pyramid, that Monaghan team developed a reputation for being streetwise and tough. Some of the rivalries got personal.
The story goes that Darragh Ó Sé put his hand up for Munster Railway Cup duty to mark Dick Clerkin. Late in the first half, Ó Sé and the Currin man clashed, leaving the latter with a burst lip. Legend has it that Ó Sé, happy with his afternoon’s work, told the province’s management team he wouldn’t be out for the second half.
Monaghan have long been a force to be reckoned with. In 2015, Monaghan raided Tralee for a first win over Kerry in either league or championship in 27 years in Division 1. Prior to that they had to go all the way back to another league game, Clones in 1988.
In championship, Kerry’s unblemished record against the Farney men remains. It goes on the line again this afternoon.
