Garveys SuperValu County Senior Football Championship, Quarter Final.
Templenoe 0-11, Mid Kerry 0-13.
Templenoe narrowly missed out on a semi-final spot after Mid Kerry finished the stronger to reach the last four of this year’s county championship with just two points to spare. Templenoe, though still have the club championship final to look forward to and despite coming up short will take plenty of positives out of this contest.
The game was played in a wet Fitzgerald stadium last Sunday and Templenoe were dealt the first blow, when it was announced beforehand that Captain Gavin Crowley would not be lining out due to injury. Eanna O’Connor opened the scoring with a free, before adding a 45 shortly after, with Mid Kerry dominating the early exchanges. Brian Crowley split the posts with Templenoe’s first attack five minutes in to get them off the mark. However, Mid Kerry remained in control and hit the next three points without reply to push them 0-01 to 0-05 ahead by the 18th minute, with Keith Evans, Darren Houlihan and Kieran Dennehy all contributing. To their credit, Templenoe regrouped and came back strongly with Patrick Clifford, Stephen O’Sullivan (2) and Tadhg Morley with his left boot all hitting the target to bring them right back into this contest and tie the scores at 5 points apiece. But Mid Kerry had the last say in the first half with the ever reliable Eanna O’Connor converting a placed ball to give them a slender lead at the break.
Half Time Score: Templenoe 0-05, Mid Kerry 0-06.
Templenoe went on another scoring spree just after the restart with Tadhg Morley from his right boot this time, before Killian Spillane (2f) and Adrian Spillane put them three points to the good and complete a seven points turnaround by the 57th minute. The score was now 0-09 to 0-06, Templenoe were motoring well at this stage and were unlucky not to add a further point when a long range effort from Stephen O’Sullivan dropped just short of going over the crossbar. The Mid Kerry management were reading the warning signs and reacted first by introducing Jack O’Connor at half time, then in the third quarter they brought in Gearoid Hassett and Ronan Murphy to try and stem the tide. Jack O’Connor and Fiachra Clifford raised two white flags for Mid Kerry, to reduce the margin to the minimum before Templenoe’s Colin Crowley showed good skill to evade the challenges of the defenders to make the score 0-10 to 0-08 after 45 minutes. However, the final quarter belonged to Mid Kerry, who outscored Templenoe by five points to one to swing the contest in their favour. Darren Houlihan and Fiachra Clifford impressed with two points each in this crucial period, while their other score came from Liam Carey. Aidan Crowley did put over an excellent free for Templenoe in between and in fairness, Templenoe fought bravely to the end with even keeper Mark looney joining the attack in search of a late goal, but Mid Kerry were not to be denied and held on for a two points win.
Final Score: Templenoe 0-11, Mid Kerry 0-13.
Scorers:
Templenoe: Stephen O’Sullivan 0-02 (1f), Tadhg Morley 0-02, Killian Spillane 0-02 (2f), Colin Crowley 0-01, Brian Crowley 0-01, Aidan Crowley 0-01, Patrick Clifford 0-01, Adrian Spillane 0-01.
Mid Kerry: Eanna O’Connor 0-03 (2f, 1 ‘45’), Darren Houlihan 0-03, Fiachra Clifford 0-03, Jack O’Connor 0-01, Liam Carey 0-01, Keith Evans 0-01, Kieran Dennehy 0-01.
Teams:
Templenoe: Mark Looney, Brian Crowley, Kieran O’Neill, John Rice, Patrick Clifford, Tadhg Morley, Gavin Crowley ©, Tom Spillane, Adrian Spillane, Mark Casey, Josh Crowley Holland, Colin Crowley, Stephen O’Sullivan, Aidan Crowley, Killian Spillane.
Subs Used: Cian Hallissey, Kieran McCarthy, Joseph Sheehan.
Mid Kerry: Sean Coffey, Pa Kilkenny, Pa Wrenn, David Mangan, Eoin Clifford, Mike Breen, Jack Brosnan, Colin McGillicuddy, , Darren Houlihan, Fiachra Clifford, Eanna O’Connor, Keith Evans, Kieran Dennehy, Liam Carey, Ciaran Kennedy.
Subs used: Jack O’Connor, Gearoid Hassett, Ronan Murphy, Caolim Teahan.
