REPORT/PHOTOS: Crotta Offer Little Resistance As Kilmoyley Ease Into Next Round

Mike O’Halloran saw Kilmoyley get the better of Crotta O’Neills in Austin Stack Park yesterday evening in the opening round of the Garveys Supervalu Kerry Senior Hurling Championship…

Kilmoyley 3-16

Crotta O’Neills 0-14

Tomas O’Connor breaks his hurl challenging Daniel Collins. Photo by Dermot Crean

Kilmoyley are going in the front door this year in their attempt to win The Neilus Flynn Cup. Last year they used the tradesmen’s entrance after an opening defeat to Abbeydorney.

Crotta O’Neills offered Kilmoyley little resistance apart from brief periods and the game panned out as I had predicted.

Crotta were severely hampered by injuries coming into the game, lining out without a number of their starting 2016 championship team.

Kilmoyley opened the scoring after two minutes with a free from Daniel Collins, they were behind by a point six minutes later with Shane Nolan driving over two frees.

Continued below…

On twelve minutes Kilmoyley struck for a goal to put them in the lead, a lead they never relinquished. By halftime Crotta were behind by six points 1-9 to 0-6.

Daniel Collins kept the Kilmoyley score ticking over with frees, Shane Nolan did the same for Crotta, but in the 53rd minute Maurice O’Connor struck for goal for Kilmoyley to put the game completely beyond Crotta 2-14 to 0-11 at that stage.

Bill Keane gets a shot away with Kieran McCarthy and Luke Fitzell nearby. Photo by Dermot Crean

On 60 minutes, Collins ghosted through the Crotta defence and blasted to the net to crown an outstanding performance on his return from injury.

Crotta who were dependent on Shane Nolan’s frees, he had one point from play and apart from two points from Padraigh Quille and a point from Sean Weir they offered little in the way of resistance to Kilmoyley who were far from their best.

Adrian Royle, who lives in the heart of Crotta, scored three points and caused a lot of bother to his neighbours.

Jack Twomey tackles Raymond Nolan. Photo by Dermot Crean

Paudie and Maurice O’Connor were also on the scoreboard for Kilmoyley as was Philip Maunsell, but the scorer-in-chief remains Daniel Collins.

Kilmoyley advance at their ease, it is hard to see where Crotta go from here, except they can get many of their injured players back pretty soon they are unlikely to stay in the championship beyond the next round.

But you never know with the talent they have coming up, perhaps the experience gained in this game will spur them on to better things.

Daniel Collins has his eye on the sliotar. Photo by Dermot Crean

What will be of concern to Kilmoyley is the amount of frees they conceded in scorable positions, against a more dynamic forward line they will concede more frees provided they don’t address their tackling.

Kilmoyley will say job done and now they can settle down to the serious work of retaining the title and await the return of Tom Murnane. SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE PHOTOS