Impressive Adare

they failed to string two points together for the rest of the match. They weren’t to be headed in the second quarter, but they were relieved not to concede two goals in this period, with Daniel Fitzgerald and Anthony Casey both denying Adare’s Davy Lyons at the expense of a ‘45.

It was 0-7 apiece at half-time, but Kiskeam were soon under pressure on the turnover, as Adare came up with most of the answers. Jack English went from strength to strength for the visitors at midfield, where the absence of the injured Padraig O’Driscoll was sorely felt by Kiskeam, whose problems mounted as well in defence and in attack. The result was that Adare had eased into a four-point lead, 0-12 to 0-8, by the 48th minute, with Kiskeam’s only score in the third-quarter coming from David Scannell.

Scannell – one of the cheif architects of the county final triumph over Fermoy – was generally well-policed by Adare substitute Paul Maher, who had been sprung from the bench in the 14th minute, but he was still involved in several of Kiskeam’s fruitful raids on the day.

He placed substitute Billy Dennehy for a point that brought Kiskeam back within striking range in the 54th minute, but it was quickly negated by Shane Costello, who proved a handful for three different defenders over the course of the game.

An inspirational point from Tom O’Sullivan kept Kiskeam’s hopes flickering in the 56th minute, but they clearly needed a goal to pull the game out of the fire, and, even with Daniel Fitzgerald redeployed at full-forward to offset their numerical disadvantage up front in the last quarter, they never once managed to test Adare custodian Brendan Carmody.

Indeed, Adare almost embellished their merited victory with a late goal, but corner forward Mark Connolly was denied by a splendid save from Anthony Casey, who always inspired confidence with his impeccable handling between the sticks for Kiskeam.