Ballylongford see off Moyvane in North Kerry derby encounter

SIX victories and no draws were the order of the day in the first weekend of Division Five on Sunday as Ballylongford, Cromane and Cordal had the biggest winning margins in their encounters. Ballylongford won by virtue of a strong second-half display away to Moyvane after both sides had gone in level at 1-5 apiece at half-time. Padraig Leahy scored the first goal of the game for the hosts but a Ciaran O’Connor penalty brought the visitors back into the game before the break.

The advantage of the wind proved telling for Ballylongford in the second period as Moyvane only added a further two points and O’Connor scored a second goal as Kenneth Foley got the visitors third in a 3-14 to 1-7 win. Cromane were also victorious up in North Kerry as they had 13 points to spare over Asdee in a match played in Ballylongford. Mike Houlihan scored the only goal in the game in the first period to put the Mid Kerry side 1-10 to 0-5 in front at half-time with four points each for a trio of Finbarr Casey, Darragh Moynihan and Liam Walsh guiding them to an eventual 1-19 to 0-9 success.

Cordal were also away winners, the East Kerry side 0-21 to 0-10 winners over St Brendans side Churchill as seven Phillip O’Connor points and five each from Brian Reidy and Phillip Griffin gave them a very encouraging start to their campaign. Elsewhere in their first County League game since 2014, Kilgarvan made a winning return to the Division as four goals were key to their victory at home to Ballyduff. Patrick O’Shea got two of them with Keith Harrington and Connie Cremin getting the others as a 2-6 to 0-7 lead at half-time became a 4-8 to 0-12 win in the finish. John Paul Leahy scored six of the visitors total on the day.

The other two games at the weekend were the closest encounters with Knocknagoshel overcoming the concession of a first-half goal to Valentia’s Ger Lynch to win out by 0-10 to 1-6 thanks to two late points from Padraig Reidy. The meeting of the two B sides meanwhile saw Rathmore overcome a 1-5 to 0-3 deficit at home to Austin Stacks at the interval to recover and record an eventual 1-8 to 1-6 success.

Tuosist start their County League campaign away to Cordal this weekend with Rathmore B the team to sit out the weekend.