Kerry Juniors Destroy Mayo To Win All-Ireland Title

Alan O’Donoghue had a great game for Kerry today. FILE PHOTO

A MITCHELS man captained Kerry to a 16th All-Ireland Junior title after they gave a masterclass of football in Croke Park this afternoon to beat Mayo by 2-18 to 0-10.

Alan O’Donoghue, who had a stormer of a game for the Kingdom, lifted the cup to the cheers of the vocal Kerry fans present, setting up some great celebrations for the Boherbee club in the coming days.

The result was never in doubt throughout the game as Kerry must have been trying to emulate the seniors’ rout of Kildare six days before.

They sped into a 0-6 to 0-0 after 12 minutes while the Connaught men took 16 minutes to get on the scoreboard.

@radiokerrysport Alan o Donoghue lifts the cup well done lads pic.twitter.com/DvTmvZ5cok

— Tommy Barrett (@Tommyb171079) August 8, 2015

Things only got worse for Mayo as the Kerry forwards ran riot all day. Great work by Alan O’Donoghue set up Thomas Hickey for a goal on 26 minutes to effectively end the game as a contest to make it 1-9 to 0-2.

Mayo managed to rally towards the end of the half with four points in the last couple of minutes of the half to leave it 1-9 to 0-6.

After the break, any sign of Mayo taking up where they left off, was dispelled when Hickey and Philip O’Connor knocked over a couple of points and it was the Desmonds man, Hickey, who scored his second goal on 37 minutes to leave it 2-11 to 0-6.

After that it was a procession for Kerry as they racked up the points to win easily.

Great credit has to go to manager Stephen Wallace of Ardfert as well as selectors Timmy O’Sullivan of Kerins O’Rahillys, Fergus Clifford of  Listry and Denis O’Sullivan of Dromid Pearses and all the back room team.

Ciarraí Abú!

Scorers for Kerry: Thomas Hickey 2-4 (0-1f), Alan O’Donoghue 0-4, Conor Cox 0-2 (0-2f), Brian Crowley 0-2, Killian Spillane 0-1, Philip O’Connor 0-1, James Walsh 0-1, Jeff O’Donoghue 0-1, Shane Murphy 0-1 (0-1 45), Tadhg Morley 0-1

Scorers for Mayo: Andrew Farrell 0-5 (0-2f), Michael Togher 0-2, Damien McGing 0-1, Eoin O’Donoghue 0-1, Declan Healy 0-1

KERRY: Shane Murphy; David Culhane, Jack McGuire, Dan O’Donoghue; Tadhg Morley, James Walsh, Gavin Crowley; Brendan O’Sullivan, Liam Kearney; Philip O’Connor, Brian Crowley, Killian Spillane; Thomas Hickey, Conor Cox, Alan O’Donoghue. Subs: Brian Sugrue for McGuire (h/t), Jeff O’Donoghue for Cox (35), Gary O’Sullivan for Spillane (39), Michael Brennan for O’Sullivan (42, black card), Eamonn Kiely for Kearney (49), David Griffin for B Crowley (53).

MAYO: Blake Forkan; Barry Leonard, Darren McHugh, Pat Barrett; Eoin O’Donoghue, Brendan Moran, Eoghan Collins; Peter Collins, Padraic Feerick; Darren Durcan, Cathal Freeman, Gavin Conway; Damien McGing, John Hutton, Ronan Malee. Subs: Andrew Farrell for Malee (8), Sean Gaughan for Leonard (24), Mickey Barrett for Gaughan (28, black card), Micheal Forde for Durcan (h/t), Declan Healy for Moran (48), Michael Togher for Collins (50).