JACK O’CONNOR’S bench gave them life after Kerry and Derry bored each other to death at Croke Park. The Kingdom edged the All-Ireland quarter-final borefest to squirm into the last four. Derry rolled out a rigid blanket defence as Kerry struggled to make inroads in an absolute stinker.
Dublin were stunned by Galway on Saturday night, and their players must have looked on in horror, wondering where it all went wrong. Taylor Swift has Derry roots but it is a good thing the popstar chose not to go to Croker and stare at the blank space that engulfed the pitch for most of the game. David Clifford and Seanie O’Shea only scored a point each from play as the Oak Leafers stood firm.
But Cillian Burke, Killian Spilliane, Adrian Spillane and Dylan Geaney led a late surge to scrape the Kingdom into the last four against Armagh. The sides were locked at 0-8 apiece with 20 minutes to go when O’Connor rung the changes to shake his team into life. It worked - as Burke injected some badly needed pace into their approach.
Killian Spillane announced his arrival with a peach on the hour mark as Derry began to fade. Burke won a free that O’Shea converted before Dylan Geaney lashed over into Hill 16 to seal it, as David Clifford patted him on the back in sheer relief. O’Connor was far from happy with their display, but admits their supersubs saved the day after a hugely frustrating afternoon at HQ.
He said: “First of all, we were allowing Derry to come into our 45 without putting a .
