REPORT: Kerry Enjoys Ten-Point Win Over Cork In Munster Hurling League

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A big win for the Kerry hurlers in Tralee today in the Munster Hurling League reported on by Mike O’Halloran…

Kerry 1-23

Cork 1-13

The Kerry panel for the clash against Cork. Photo by Mike O’Halloran

A well deserved win for the Kerry hurlers over Cork, the margin was ten points but it could easily have been sixteen points as Kerry had three goal chances.

Brandon Barrett set the tone with a great point after just thirty seconds, within a minute and a half Padraig Boyle had another.

Martin Stackpoole was injured early on and was replaced by Stephen Murphy, lets hope Martin makes a quick recovery.

John Looney had Cork’s first point followed by Declan Dalton on ten minutes.

An injury to Jason Digging resulted in the introduction of Tom Murnane, how fitting he should be on the field on a historic day for Kerry hurling.

On sixteen minutes Shane Nolan put Kerry back in front, Cork had three further points before Daithi Griffin levelled matters for Kerry on twenty three minutes.

Shane Conway put Kerry into the lead a half a minute later, a lead that Kerry would not relinquish as they put the Munster champions to the sword.

That sword was sharpened by a class goal from Colum Harty after both Shane Conway and Padraigh Boyle worked hard to present him with the net shaker, 1.07 now to 0.05.

Kerry took the score to 1.10 before Declan Dalton had point for Cork on thirty minutes.

Shane Conway added two more points with Padraig Boyle adding one to leave the score at halftime Kerry 1.13 Cork 0.06.

Within two minutes of the restart Shane Conway who was playing with stitches in his jaw since the game on Saturday eased over another point.

Jack Goulding replaced Colum Harty as a blood sub, he would later be a permanent replacement for Maurice O’Connor.

Then followed a glorious moment of hurling from the genius that is Shane Conway, when the Cork boys bought all his dummies and he went on to stroke over two beauts to put Kerry into a ten point lead 1.16 to 0.06.

Cork must have thought they were beginning a revival when John Looney goaled ten minutes into the half but Shane Nolan burst that bubble when he pointed almost immediately. Declan Dalton also had his point cancelled by Nolan.

Kerry only took their foot off the pedal for a very short period in the second half and ran out easy winners in the end.

This report mentions the Kerry scorers and those scorers were brilliant, the stand out man from start to finish was Sean Weir who showed Cork no respect by defending like his life depended on it and by driving up the field to score two huge points.

A huge day for Kerry hurling. They say around four hundred people attended the game, but I’ll bet by next Friday it will have grown to four thousand, much like Woodstock and Thomond Park in 1978.

When last did Cork fail to win a round in a hurling competition that included Kerry, already on social media questions are being raised about the management. Roll on January 28th in London.

Kerry: Martin Stackpoole (Stephen Murphy) John Buckley, Jason Diggins (Tom Murnane) Niall O’Mahony (Dougie Fitzell) Sean Weir, Bryan Murphy, Darren Dineen, Brandon Barrett, Daithi Griffin (Daniel Carroll), Colum Harty, Shane Nolan, Jordan Conway, Padraig Boyle, Shane Conway, Maurice O’Connor (Jack Goulding)