Kerry blitzes us in the first 20mins and we couldn't match their intensity or energy. They were 9 points up after 20mins. Gavin White got 2 brilliant points in the 1st half. But in my opinion it was David Clifford's three 2 pointers and Sean O'Shea's 2 pointer in the 1st half that did the real damage.
Kerry obviously knew we would sit in a low block with 2 sweepers, so they targeted the 2 pointers, as we weren't putting much pressure or tracking Kerry players outside our 45/arc, so they could tee the 2 point shots up. Kerry attempted Eleven 2 pointers in the first half into the Canal end.
At the end of the match the final shot tally was 35 for Kerry, 31 for Donegal. The conversion rate was 22 scores for Kerry and 19 scores for Donegal, so the Five 2 pointers for Kerry were a huge difference against our Zero 2 pointers.
When we had possession in attack, Kerry went man-to-man with us inside their 45 and closely tracked our players outside the 45, so that effectively made it very difficult for us to get 2 point shots away or lined up. Conor O'Donnell had a brilliant game and was able to take on his man inside the arc and score, so I assume Kerry were not too concerned to concede those 1 pointers as a consequence of going man-to-man, with their main aim of stopping the 2 pointers.
But huge credit to the Donegal players for never giving up and clawing it back to 4 points with 12 mins remaining and we got to grips in midfield in the second half, but Kerry were still able to hoover up breaking ball on their own kick outs.
An interesting stat from the end of the game, Kerry had 24 kick outs and won 15(62%) and lost 9(37%), Donegal had 29 kick outs and won 19(65%) and lost 10(34%). Donegal player and management team will have learn so much from that final and there'll be a huge hunger to correct it in 2026.
Replying To Scenicparish: "Of course Gavin destroyed us. With Kerry dominating midfield Gavin got lots of opertunities to get forward. We have plenty of good runners as well, Finbar, Peadar, Ryan and Ban but the midfield battle needs to be won first."
Exactly. If Donegal were mopping up in midfield, Gavin White would have been on the back-foot for most of the game, rather than being able to bomb forward. Having a dominant midfield is a dream for an attacking wing-back with pace. Even from both throw-ins, it was Kerry who won them and knocked them down to an onrushing White. I did think McGuinness missed a trick by not having someone like Ciarán Moore track him, once it was clear he was going to be getting forward so regularly. Yes, it would reduce Moore's ability to impact the game positively, but he wasn't getting the chance to do it anyway, with how the game was developing. At least his attributes would have been put to better use.