Nolan strike ends Kerry hopes

CARLOW 1-18 KERRY 1-11

CARLOW took advantage of a very inept Kerry performance to claim victory at Austin Stack Park yesterday.

Despite a below-par performance, Kerry were in the game until wing-back James O’Connor received a straight red on 54 minutes.

At that stage, they were trailing by only a point (0-15 to 1-11), but Carlow took control of a poor contest after that.

Yet, the visitors played the more direct hurling and deserved their win, which was finally secured by Chris Nolan’s injury-time goal.

Carlow led early on and the sides swapped scores up to the 28th minute when Brandon Barrett blasted the ball into the Carlow net to help Kerry somehow go in at the interval ahead by 1-8 to 0-9.

With Denis Murphy accurate from frees and Martin Kavanagh outstanding, Carlow went ahead as Kerry – nowhere near as sharp as they were against London last week – struggled and were grateful to full-back Bryan Murphy who denied Carlow the goal they craved.

The Kerry sending off and Nolan goal for Carlow settled the issue and Kerry will now have to show marked improvement for their next game against Kildare.

Carlow were strong throughout the field and they physically imposed themselves on Kerry who had no answers with their lightweight attack strangely out of sorts.

SCORERS – Carlow: D Murphy 0-7 (6f), M Kavanagh 0-6 (1f), C Nolan 1-1, J Kavanagh 0-2, D Byrne and K McDonnell 0-1 each. Kerry: S Nolan 0-4 (3fs, 1 65), B Barrett 1-0, P Boyle 0-3, S Conway, 0-2 D Collins and D O’Carroll 0-1 each.

CARLOW – B Tracey 7; D Wall 7 , A Corcoran 7 , M Doyle 7; E Nolan 8 , D English 7 , R Coady 7; J Kavanagh 8, D Byrne 8; S Murphy 7, M Kavanagh 8, E Byrne 6; D Murphy 6, C Foley 5, C Nolan 7. Subs: P Cody 7 for Foley (h-t), J Nolan 7 for Byrne (42), K McDonald 7 for D Murphy (55), R Kelly for Wall (70) KERRY – S Murphy 7; J Buckley 6, B Murphy 8, S Weir 7; J O’Connor 5, D Collins 7, T Murnane 6; D Griffin 6, B Barrett 6; J Conway 6, S Nolan 6, S Conway 6; P Boyle 6, D O’Carroll 6, C Harty 6 . Subs: J Goulding 6 for Harty (47), M Boyle 6 for J Conway (55), P O’Connor 6 for Barrett (64).

REF – R McGann (Clare)