Rampant Kilbrin deliver five-star performance to reach final

Kilbrin 5-30 Tullylease 1-10

KILBRIN produced a scintillating display of power hurling and excellent teamwork to cruise to an emphatic victory over Tullylease in a one-sided Kanturk Co-Op Mart JAHC semi-final at Newmarkret on Sunday.

The scoreline tells the tale, no argument with the full time tally illustrating the gap in standard. Indeed, Kilbrin seldom relaxed their grip on the proceedings, producing some spell binding passages of hurling that left Tullylease in deep water from early on.

Tullylease were never allowed to get any real structure into their game, and once Kilbrin got into their stride from the off, Tullylease experienced all sorts of problems.

Kilbrin began in a whirlwind with sharp attacks yielding points from Eoin Sheahan, Shane Crowley and Stephen O’Reilly before William Heffernan grabbed the initial goal in the ninth minute.

The defending champions were simply a revelation, their supremacy based on dominance in the key departments through the work-rate of Thomas O’Reilly, William Egan, Garrett Linehan, Shane Crowley and Stephen O’Reilly.

Good work by O’Reilly laid the platform for Sheahan to goal before Heffernan added his second. It took Tullylease some time to come to grips with the speed and precision of the opposition, their cause boosted somewhat on points from placed balls by Aidan O’Gorman and a goal from Stephen O’Leary narrowed a daunting deficit 3-18 to 1-6 at the break.

P Doyle; G O’Connor,

The second half continued on a similar vein, again no argument who occupied pole position. Kilbrin continued the barrage, no let up in the tidal wave with quick fire goals from Shane Crowley and Garrett Linehan widening the gap.

All too often, Tullylease took too much out of the ball and frequently gave possession away, relying on O’Gorman, Shane Hehir and Markie Sheehy for points. All through, Kilbrin imposed their influence in a major way and it was only the margin of their victory remained to be determined.

Kilbrin finished with points from O’Reilly and Sheahan to rubber-stamp their safe passage to the decider against Banteer. KILBRIN: P O’Callaghan; W Corkery, T O’Reilly, K Buttimer; D Sheahan 0-2, W Egan, C Carroll 0-1; G Linehan 1-2, S Crowley 1-5; S O’Reilly 0-12 (3f, 1 ‘65’), Daniel O’Sullivan, D Daly 0-1; W Heffernan 2-0, E Sheahan 1-6, David O’Sullivan 0-1. Subs: T Cantillon for Carroll, T Mullane for Buttimer, C Carroll for Linehan.

TULLYLEASE: D Kearney; E O’Gorman, E Hannigan, R Kiely; M Field, S Stokes, S McSweeney; M McSweeney, P Cronin; S Hehir 0-1, J Sheehy, N Collins; S O’Leary 1-0, M Sheehy 0-1, A O’Gorman 0-8 (7f, 1 ‘65’).

REFEREE: M Sheehan (Liscarroll)