Lack of cutting edge blunts Kilmurry’s Munster title hopes

Listowel Emmets 0-9 

Kilmurry 1-2

NOEL HORGAN REPORTS

NO early Christmas cheer for Kilmurry, and no complaints about their fate in the AIB Munster club junior football final in Mallow on Saturday.

While they battled earnestly throughout, they found Kerry kingpins Listowel Emmets a bit too hot to handle in a contest marred as a spectacle by a swirling wind and intermittent showers that made for extremely testing conditions.

Kilmurry's Padraig Brehanu breaks past Listowl Emmets' Ciáran Pierse.

It was a familiar story as far as Cork’s standard-bearers are concerned, considering just three clubs – Carbery Rangers (2003), Canovee (2008) and Knocknagree (2017) – from the Rebel County have triumphed since the initial provincial championship was staged in 2001.

The competition has been dominated by Kerry teams otherwise, and, not surprisingly, Kilmurry, beaten by Fossa in last year’s decider, were firmly cast in the underdog’s role ahead of the clash with Listowel.

Manager Cormac Linehan dismissed the notion his charges were intimidated by the Kingdom’s proud tradition, however, stating they went into the game believing they were in with a decent chance of coming up trumps.

‘When you turn up in a Munster final, you want to win it, and we had worked very hard since losing the county final (to St Finbarr’s second team) a few weeks ago,’ Linehan said.

‘We won our two previous games in Munster handily enough, and our plan today was to try and stay with Listowel, torment them, and make sure they got no goal. All of that kinda worked, I thought we defended very well, tackled very hard, but our big problem was we failed to get enough players up the field to be a serious threat.

‘Maybe we focused too much on the defending part, while we didn’t avail of the few chances we got, and you have to make them all count when the opposition is so good,’ he said, conceding Listowel were the better team on the day.

That Kilmurry’s lack of penetration was the primary reason for their failure can be gauged from the fact that they failed to raise a flag in the first half, and that none of their six starting forwards registered a score over the hour.

To their credit, they defended well, so much so that Listowel’s only score from play before the break came from full-forward Bryan Sweeney in stoppage time. In view of their shortcomings in attack, however, it was on the cards Kilmurry would be hard-pressed to make up the leeway after finishing the first half four points in arrears.

Kilmurry's Liam Wall gets his pass away under pressure from Listowl Emmets' Eddie Browne during the Munster club junior football championship final at Mallow on Saturday.

There was to be no improvement in the Muskerry side’s fortunes on the resumption, as they fell six points adrift before wing-back Tomás Collins opened their account, following good work by Alexander Aisling, Liam Wall and Lawrence Aisling, in the 39th minute.

Ten minutes later, Kilmurry lost midfielder Kyle Kelleher to a second yellow card, putting paid to any remote hopes of a dramatic resurgence by the Mid-Cork men, who trailed by 0-9 to 0-1 nearing the end of regulation time.

After cutting the gap through corner-back Brian Hinchion in the 59th minute, they added a goal in stoppage time, fisted to the net by towering substitute Greg Barrett. Liam Wall shot wide with an effort for a point shortly afterwards, but it would be stretching things a bit to imagine Kilmurry might have pulled the game out of the fire had they got back within striking range at that juncture.

Scorers

Listowel Emmets: S Tarrant 0-3 (3f); S Keane 0-2 (1f); D Keane 0-2 (2f); B Sweeney, J McVeigh 0-1 each.

Kilmurry: G Barrett 1-0; T Collins, B Hinchion 0-1 each.

Listowel Emmets: C Keane; C Pierce, N Collins, M Kennedy; E Healy, E Browne, C Mulvihill; JJ Grimes, J McVeigh; J McElligott, S Keane, G McCarthy; D Keane, B Sweeney, S Tarrant.

Subs: A O’Rourke for McCarthy (39), D Lynch for D Keane (44), D Leahy for Mulvihill (57), J Moriarty for S Keane (59), C Holly for Tarrant (59), S Gilbert for Browne (blood sub, 63).

Kilmurry: J McDonnell; B Hinchion, K Barrett, G O’Mahony; D Cahalane, W Ronan, T Collins; K Kelleher, James O’Mullane; R Duggan, A Aisling, L Aisling; P Brehanu, L Wall, S Warren.

Subs: Joe O’Mullane for Warren (35), R Leahy for Duggan (46), G Barrett for A Aisling (54), J McGinn for Brehanu (58).

Referee: T McGrath (Limerick).