Dream start turns to Cork nightmare as Kerry seal 80th Munster title in style

MUNSTER SFC FINAL Cork 2-4 Kerry 3-18

CORK enjoyed the dream start but quickly woke up to another Munster Final nightmare as Kerry inflicted a 17-point defeat on the Rebels to capture a 80th Munster title for the Kingdom and book their place in the All-Ireland Quarter-final Group Phase, or Super 8s, with minimal fuss.

A Jamie O’Sullivan goal after 80 seconds was as good a Musnter Football Final baptism for the new Pairc Ui Chaoimh as anyone in Cork could have hoped for, and while Stephen O’Brien replied in kind three minutes later Cork were at it again in the ninth minute with Mark Collins slapping the ball past Shane Murphy to raise a second green flag for the home side. Alas, the Rebels were soon waving the white flag of surrender as Kerry went about winning this Munster Final - the first on Leeside since 2014 - by half time. By the full time whistle the heavy beats of Jenny Greene and the RTE Orchestra could be clearly heard washing in from the adjoining Marquee as the Cork contingent of the 27,674 emptied out of the stadium, their team well and truly beaten on a fine evening for saving hay.

In the aftermath the numbers told the story. The second biggest win over Cork since 1938. Cork managing just six scores over 74 minutes, and going 37 minutes without any score. Kerry winning the provincial title for a sixth year in a row, by an average of nine and a half points over those six finals. It makes for damning reading for Cork and is verging on the embarrassing for Kerry, not that they’ll worry about that. Half a dozen Kerry men were winning their first Munster senior medal on the field of play and they’ll take 17-point wins over Cork every day of the week. Their manager, too, was keen to draw some praise for his players rather than completely indulge the feelings of sympathy some in the press corp were inclined to have for Cork.

“The way you have to view it I feel is that we got a lot right today,” Fitzmaurice said, and there could be no arguments. Those two early goal concessions aside, kerry were magificent and purposeful in everything they did. In the fourth minute David Moran fielded a Cork kickout and as the Cork players paused for a second as Moran took his ‘mark’ he kicked long to O’Brien who put on the afterburners to outpace Stephen Cronin and crash his shot past Mark White in the Cork goal. It was the sort of quick thinking and direct football that Cork were simply not capable of playing all evening, or if they were they simply chose not to.

As with every other Cork team for the last decade or more, Ronan McCarthy’s incarnation looked to play a running game, but they simply ran up cul-desacs and into Kerry roadblocks. The Kerry defence, once they aligned themselves properly after that jittery first nine minutes, did a complete shout-out of Cork who dithered between trying to run through impossibly tight gaps or telegraphed really poor passes towards Luke Connolly and John O’Rourke who were left isolated inside. It was terrible stuff from the home side and well executed, determined stuff from Kerry.

At the other end Sean O’Shea, Paul Geaney, David Clifford and James O’Donoghue worked their socks off winning ball, running clever lines and working their defenders to the bone. And all the time the scores kept coming.

Connolly’s peach of a point in the ninth minute made it 2-1 to 1-2 but 10 minutes later it was 2-1 to 1-5 and by half time Kerry were seven clear, 1-11 to 2-1, and cruising. Goal-scorer O’Brien was gone at that stage, the victim of a 25th minute black card he can have no argument with, while Cork had lost defender Sam Ryan and play-makerin-chief Deane to black cards also, with Deane’s plain wrong for what was an accidental and unavoidable collision with Jason Foley.

What seemed a mountain for the Rebels to climb at the interval became an insurmountable canyon a minute into the second half when Kevin McCarthy - on for O’Brien - set up Geaney for a goal that put paid to any fanciful notions of a Cork comeback, and the second half petered out to its inevitable conclusion.

Cork’s fourth score, a Connolly free, arrived 37 minutes after their third, and they’d still only manage two more in the endgame even with Kerry easing up and thinking ahead to a Super 8 meeting with Galway three weeks from last Saturday.

The champions were 2-17 to 2-3 ahead when Geaney slammed in Kerry’s third goal agains created by McCarthy’s strong running - as Eamonn Fitzmaurice emptied his bench in anticipation of that Croke Park meeting with Galway.

Gavin White’s brilliant performance was rewarded with a late point, with Barry John Keane also coming in off the bench to add a score. There were other goal chances too from Clifford and Peter Crowley - O’Shea had hit the crossbar in the first half too - but it mattered little in the end as Shane Murphy became the latest Dr Crokes club man to collect the Munster Cup.

CORK: Mark White, Sam Ryan, Jamie O’Sullivan 1-0, Kevin Flahive, Kevin Crowley, Stephen Cronin, Tomás Clancy, Aidan Walsh, Ian Maguire, Kevin O’Driscoll, Sean White, Ruairi Deane, John O’Rourke, Mark Collins 1-1, Luke Connolly 0-2 (1f). Subs: James Loughrey for S Ryan (b/c, 18), Paul Kerrigan for R Deane (b/c, 34), Peter Kelleher 0-1 for J O’Rourke (ht), Brian Hurley for K O’Driscoll (ht), Brian O’Driscoll for S Cronin (58), Colm O’Neill for A Walsh (59).

KERRY: Shane Murphy, Jason Foley, Peter Crowley, Brian Ó Beaglaoich, Paul Murphy 0-2, Tadhg Morley, Gavin White 0-1, David Moran, Jack Barry, Micheál Burns, Seán O’Shea 0-4 (1f, 2 ‘45’), Stephen O’Brien 1-0, David Clifford 0-2, Paul Geaney 2-5, James O’Donoghue 0-3 (1f). Subs: Kevin McCarthy for S O’Brien (b/c, 25), Darran O’Sullivan for M Burns (ht), Mark Griffin for J Foley (54), Kieran Donaghy for D Clifford (55), Barry John Keane 0-1 for J O’Donoghue (59), Killian Young for T Morley (64).

REFEREE: Ciaran Branagan (Down)