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Mike O’Halloran reports on Kerry’s defeat against Carlow in Tralee this afternoon in their Allianz Hurling League Division 2A encounter…
Kerry 1-11
Carlow 1-18
The Kerry team and subs before the match today. Photo by Mike O’Halloran
A disappointing day for the Kerry hurlers today in Austin Stack Park when they went down by seven points to Carlow.
Kerry did struggle in the first 20 minutes against a physically strong Carlow side who gave Kerry no time on the ball.
I had expected a stern test from Carlow but I thought Kerry had enough to win given their performances in their last two games.
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Kerry did struggle through the first 20 minutes but seemed to be settling into the game towards the end of the first half and when Brandon Barrett one handed to the net to leave the score at halftime Kerry 1-8 Carlow 0-9 things looked good for the final 35 minutes.
Padraig Boyle opened the Kerry account after a minute with a great catch behind his man and split the posts.
Denis Murphy and Shane Nolan exchanged points, Murphy and Padraig Boyle had point each to level matters at the nine minute mark.
Shane Nolan and Shane Conway put Kerry two ahead before Carlow had four unanswered points in a row, their scorers were Denis Murphy with one, Martin Kavanagh added two and Jack Kavanagh had one also, with twenty minutes on the clock the scoreline read Carlow 0-7 Kerry 0-5.
Shane Nolan, Daniel Collins and Shane Conway had points for Kerry, Carlow added two more from Denis Murphy and Martin Kavanagh.
Then came Brandon Barrett’s goal. Halftime; Kerry 1.08 Carlow 0.09.
Carlow did have two goal scoring chances spurned in the first half while Kerry did not create a clear goal chance.
It was all Carlow in the second half as their power and strength seemed to stifle the Kerry attack, Kerry were reduced to fourteen during the second half, which didn’t help their cause.
Carlow openened the second half with three points, two from Denis Murphy and one from Seamus Murphy, Daniel Carroll added a point for Kerry but Carlow responded with two more.
Shane Nolan and Padraig Boyle tacked on two for Kerry only for Carlow to finish with a five point scoring spree from the sticks of Chris Nolan two, Martin Kavanagh two and one from Kevin McDonald.
It was a disappointing day for the boys, but I’m pretty sure they learned a huge amount from this stiff test and it will stand them in good stead for the upcoming games.
Kerry cannot afford any slips up in the remaining fixtures and hopefully wins against Kildare and Meath will set up a crunch game against Westmeath.
Kerry; Stephen Murphy, John Buckley, Bryan Murphy, Sean Weir, James O’Connor, Daniel Collins,(0.01) Tom Murnane, Daithi Griffin, Brandon Barrett (1g) Jordan Conway, Shane Nolan (0.04), Shane Conway (0.02), Padraig Boyle (0.03) Daniel O’Carroll (0.01) Colum Harty. Subs used; Jack Goulding, Michael Boyle, Paudie O’Connor.
