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Kerry line up for the national anthem. Photo: Mike O’Halloran
Mike O’Halloran reports on a disappointing opening Division 2A league game for Kerry away to Westmeath on Sunday…
Westmeath 3-15
Kerry 1-15
A disappointing opening game for Kerry going down to Westmeath by six points.
Ciaran Boyle opened the scoring for the home side with a wind assisted point after four minutes, Paudie Ahern replied for Kerry with a free.
Over the next thirteen minutes Westmeath added three more points from Jack Gillen, Cormac Boyle and Ciaran Doyle.
Shane Nolan and Mark Heffernan had a point each for Kerry to reduce the margin to one point, but a long ball into Niall Mitchell’s hand where he turned onto his left and blasted to the net extended the Leinster men’s lead.
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Soon after, Paudie Ahern received the ball from Shane Conway and he pointed, 1-5 to 0-5 in favour of Westmeath with 25 minutes on the clock.
A minute later though, Westmeath won a penalty and Jack Gillen pushed the lead out to five point.
Sean Weir prevented another goal two minutes later and Paudie Ahern stopped the rot with a point before Shane McGovern and Jack Gillen put six between them at the break.
Photo: Mike O’Halloran
Kerry were looking forward to playing with the stiff swirling wind in the second half and six points seemed like a lead that could be pegged back, especially as Kerry had more wides than Westmeath against the wind.
Davy Glennon came on for Westmeath, Padraig Boyle replaced Mark Heffernan and Westmeath came out of the blocks all guns blazing.
Within 15 seconds of the restart they had a point on the board from Kevin Regan, three minutes later they had a goal and a point chalked up both coming from Jack Gillen.
On seven minutes, Shane Conway took over the free taking duties and he added two in a row, Jack Gillen and Shane Conway had two points each to leave the score Kerry 0-10 Westmeath 3-10 17 minutes into the second half.
Then up steps Michael Boyle with a goal followed by points from Gavin Dooley and and Paudie Ahern and a comeback seemed to be on the cards as Kerry had improved their efforts and Conway was getting on more ball.
Westmeath though had points from Jack Galvin and the evergeen Dereck McNicholas, Michael walked through the Westmeath defence and banged over a point to make it 3.12 to 1.13.
Jack Gillen, Killian Doyle and Kevin Regan had one point each, Shane Conway pointed a free before Fionan MacKessey had the the score of the game when he drove over a powerful point to leave the final score Westmeath 3-15 Kerry 1-15.
Kerry were full of running and tried to the very end but the gulf in class between a Joe McDonagh Cup team and a Liam McCarthy team was evident.
Westmeath were sharper and more powerful and knew where the posts were.
Kerry will learned form this outing and will look forward to picking up point next Sunday against Kildare who will most probably be without their Naas players.
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