Juniors find Leitrim tougher than expected
ALL-IRELAND JUNIOR FC SEMI-FINAL
Kerry 1-16 Leitrim 1-9
NOT as easy as was predicted, but Kerry never looked in danger of not reaching a fourth success All-Ireland Junior final with a workmanlike win over a Leitrim side that performed above expectations. It’s doing no disservice to Leitrim to suggest they will have journeyed home out of Limerick last Saturday more than pleased with themselves at having come within seven points of a Kerry team laden with All-Ireland medals at various grades.
Quite how Kerry will have regarded their own performance on their trip back south is another matter, but a semi-final win is a semi-final win and it’s the reigning All-Ireland champions that will play Meath on Saturday week, not Leitrim.
Perhaps the Kerry collective bought into the notion that they just had to show up and operate at half gas to come through here, or maybe they hadn’t quite washed the highs and kinks of their Munster final extra-time win over Cork out of their system. Whatever the reason, this was not the performance that this team is capable of, but at this stage of the competition that might not be a bad thing.
Players and management are routinely fond of telling the rest of us that there are always things to work on - no matter the magnitude of a win - and manager Jimmy Keane and his selectors and players will have plenty to tease out ahead of that All-Ireland title defence against the Royals in Portlaoise. If nothing else, there should be no risk of taking Meath for granted, even if was ‘only’ Kilkenny they had to beat in their All-Ireland semi-final.
For all that, Kerry never looked like losing this contest once they had negated Leitrim’s third minute goal - clinically scored by Cathal McCrann - with one of their own through the livewire Tomás Ó Sé four minutes later. The Gaeltacht man’s shot might have trickled over the goal but there was nothing weak about his gathering of Brendan O’Sullivan’s high ball in, and his turning of his marker and his knowing what he wanted to do.
A second Conor Cox converted free was followed by points from play by James Walsh, Jeff O’Donoghue, Killian Spillane and Ó Sé, before a converted ‘45’ from O’Donoghue put Kerry 1-7 to 1-0 ahead by the 18th minute.
At that stage there was an air of inevitability about the outcome, and a hint that if Kerry had a mind to find another gear or two they could cruise to a fairly humbling defeat for Leitrim. Just then, though, Jack Heslin was played in on the Kerry goal and should have done better than to strike his low shot off the butt of the post, but it was a sharp reminder to Kerry that Leitrim weren’t to be underestimated.
Ó Sé - Kerry’s liveliest forward all day - set up Cox for a point before Heslin managed Leitrim’s second score to leave it 1-8 to 1-1 in Kerry’s favour at the break.
An early exchange of points at the start of the second half at least gave Leitrim something to cling to, and when Heslin beat Tomás Mac an tSaoir in the air to flick the ball goalward before being cleared by a defender, it was another salient reminder to Kerry that their opponents weren’t going down without a fight.
A McCrann free got Leitrim a little closer but then points from Philip O’Connor (2) and Liam Carey pushed Kerry 10 ahead by the 49th minute and there was no way back for the Connacht champions. Or so it seemed.
Whether it was down to Kerry complaceny or an unexpected raising of Leitrim’s performance - or more likely a combination of the two - the next 10 minutes saw Leitrim outscore Kerry 0-5 to 0-0 to half the deficit to five points, a period that included Robbie Lowe firing a goal-bound shot off Mac An tSaoir for a point.
Leitrim needed a second goal at least but it never arrived and Kerry ralled a little in added time for Eanna Ó Conchuir (2) and Jeff O’Donoghue to add points to book the team’s place in next month’s All-Ireland final.
KERRY: Tomás Mac an tSaoir (An Ghaeltacht), Eamon Kiely (Brosna), Jack McGuire (Listowel Emmets), Pa Kilkenny (Glenbeigh/Glencar), James Walsh 0-1 (Knocknagoshel), Michael Foley (Ballydonoghue), Daniel O’Brien (Glenflesk), Roibéard Ó Sé (An Ghaeltacht), Brendan O’Sullivan (Valentia), Philip O’Connor 0-2 (Cordal), Jeff O’Donoghue 0-4 (1 ‘45’, 2f) (Glenflesk), Eanna Ó Conchúir 0-3 (An Ghaeltacht), Killian Spillane 0-1 (Templenoe), Conor Cox 0-3 (2f) (Listowel Emmets), Tomás Ó Sé 1-1 (An Ghaeltacht).
SUBS: Liam Carey 0-1 (Beaufort) for Ó Conchúir (42-44, blood) for Cox (46), Ivan Parker (Churchill) for Spillane (48), PJ Mac Laímh (An Gaeltacht) for Roibéard Ó Sé (50), Brian Sugrue (Renard) for Kiely (52), DJ Murphy (Gneeveguilla) for Foley (56), Dara Ó Sé (An Ghaeltacht) for Tomás Ó Sé (58)
LEITRIM: Philip Farrelly, James Mitchell, Alan Armstrong, James Glancy, James Campbell, Brian Leyden, Liam Ryan, Shane Quinn 0-1, Adrian Flynn, Jack Heslin 0-1, Donal Flynn, Nicholas McWeeney 0-2, Cathal McCauley, Cathal McCrann 1-2 (2f), Robbie Cunningham.
SUBS: Daniel Lowe for Campbell (17), Robbie Lowe 0-1 for Cunningham (35), Cian Clinton 0-2 for Heslin (46), Caillan Canning for McCauley (48), Francis Flynn for Leyden (58), Daniel Lyons for Glancy (58)
REFEREE: Barry Tiernan (Dublin)