Glory days for Kerry clubs in Croker

IT can almost become routine this trip to Croke Park in early February.

Such is Kerry’s dominance at this level of club football that, more often than not, the Kingdom will have at least one club in the finals if not two. Once there you can be all but sure of a winner or, as in the past two years, two.

That being the case you might expect the whole thing to become a little jaded. Somehow it never does. It helps when Kerry bring clubs of the quality of Templnoe and St Marys to the big house, clubs who play football the way you’d want to see football be played.

Templenoe, in the junior final (the first of the evening’s two fixtures), were sensational in their victory over a somewhat fancied Ardnaree side from Mayo. They laid down their intent to dominant the game right from the off.

All Ireland winning minor footballer Killian Spillane twice floated over the bar beautifully to get his side up and running. Templenoe took the game’s opening three scores and went on to claim each of Ardnaree’s subsequent kick-outs – they were dominant, utterly dominant.

And for all that their dominance wasn’t reflected on the scoreboard at half-time. They led by five, not an insignificant lead, and yet it could have been a whole lot more following a goal by Stephen O’Sullivan.

Instead Ardnaree responded with 1-2 without reply. All they succeeded in doing was making Templenoe angry. The Kerry champs came out in the second half and in a whirlwind of activity finished the game with 4-13 to Ardnaree’s 1-10.

A fitting way for their campaign to draw to a close and a high bar set for St Marys to match in the second game, the intermediate final where they’d face Hollymount / Carramore, again of Mayo. They wouldn’t quite manage to play to the level of which they’re capable of. Marys’ victory was more prosaic, it was that way out of necessity. The Mayo men made it devilishly difficult for St Marys to play their natural expansive game. No if St Mary’s were going to triumph here they’d have to dig it out and dig it out is just what they did. It was nip and tuck most of the way but when they hit 2-2 inside the opening fourteen minutes of the second half they pretty much wrapped the game up to run out 2-10 to 0-10 winners.

Photos by Sportsfile Captains Sean Cournane and Tadhg Morley celebrate their clubs All Ireland success