KERRY RUST TOO STRONG
Kingdom ease to victory over Limerick after a four-week lay-off that boss Jack criticised
KERRY boss Jack O’connor expressed concern over his side’s four-week lay-off despite cruising to the Munster yesterday.
The 23-point margin equalled the biggest ever in a Munster final, matching Kerry’s 6-11 to 2-0 victory over Clare way back in 1919.
It leaves O’connor’s charges in fine fettle approaching the All-ireland quarter-final on the weekend of June 24/25.
However, after enjoying a brisk run of games en route to the League title earlier this year, O’connor bemoaned his side’s relative inactivity since.
“Of course four weeks is an issue and that’s why the system next year is going to be fairer for everybody,” he said. “I’m not too concerned about the game today but I am relatively concerned about having four weeks off.
“I’ve gone on record as saying that we’ve played eight games in 10 weeks in the League and we’re playing three games in 12 weeks in the Championship. That can’t be right, that system had to be fixed.”
The result was never in doubt in front of 14,587 at Fitzgerald Stadium though Kerry were sloppy for much of the first half, only leading 0-7 to 0-3 by the 30-minute mark.
But a run of five points without reply from there to half-time and another six after the break put it beyond doubt as Limerick struggled to make inroads up front, with none of their starting forwards managing a score from play.
“We were a bit unhappy with the start,” admitted O’connor, who expects to have injured star man David Clifford back for the All-ireland quarter-final. “We only had three scores from eight attacks early on so I thought we were a bit wasteful there. Towards the end of the first half in particular and the start of the second half we upped the ante and we were comfortable enough after that.”
Kerry’s efficiency shot up in the second half, in which they registered just one wide, and Killian Spillane crowned a fine all-round display with the game’s only goal in the 48th minute.
O’connor added: “Killian has been going very well in training and we just went with a very offensive team because we felt we’d have a lot of the ball and we thought that Limerick would go defensive which they did.” Limerick manager Billy Lee has to pick his side up for a round two qualifier in two weeks’ time.
Half-backs Iain Corbett and Cian Sheehan, with 0-5 between them, were his most heroic players.
Lee said: “What I would say about Kerry, they’re always respectful of the opposition. They could have kicked another couple of goals and took the points. They don’t tattoo a team when they have them beat and that’s not unnoticed.”