Kerry brush aside Louth who avoid a repeat of last year’s hammering

Kerry 2-21 Louth 1-10

The team that won by 14 points and the team that lost by 14 points both left Portlaoise happy enough on Sunday afternoon. Go figure.

Kerry won as Kerry were expected to win, and will sit out next weekend having booked their passage straight to the All-Ireland quarter-finals in Croke Park in a fortnight.

Louth halved the 28-point trimming they suffered to the same opposition at the same venue a year ago, and will head for the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-finals next weekend feeling pretty good about themselves.

By keeping the margin to what it was, Louth just about held on to second place in Group Four – ahead of Monaghan on scoring difference – and thus avoid having to play an away preliminary next week; although they won’t have home advantage with Ardee deemed incapable of hosting a championship game.

From Kerry’s perspective, there was good and not so good in O’Moore Park. The good is that they won, and they got a reasonable test from Louth, not least in the first half when the beaten Leinster finalists asked plenty of questions of the Munster champions.

The not so good for the Kingdom was the several goal chances Louth created, and Jack O’Connor will know a serious tightening up of his defence will be required before the bigger acreage of Croke Park.

Before a decent attendance at O’Moore Park, Kerry led by five at the turnaround, 0-13 to 1-5, but Louth would have been quietly pleased with how they had performed. In the corresponding game last year Louth were 18 behind at the break so that was one positive key performance indicator ticked.

Early points from Joe O’Connor, Seán O’Shea and Tony Brosnan got Kerry up and running but then, seven minutes in, Donal McKenny gathered a high dropping ball over Tadhg Morley and slipped it past Shane Ryan to level the score.

Louth’s game plan was to defend in big numbers but counter attack quickly with plenty of players pouring forward. The only problem was some handling errors and poor shot execution betrayed the Leinster finalists.

Meanwhile, Kerry were happy enough absorb the pressure, counter attack quickly and pick off the points with scores from David Clifford (4), Paudie Clifford (2), Brian Ó Beaglaioch (2), Paul Murphy and Diarmuid O’Connor pushing Kerry to their 0-13 to 1-5 half-time lead.

Louth’s points came from Craig Lennon, Ciarán Byrne, Conor Grimes, Sam Mulroy (free) and Bevan Duffy.

O’Shea and David Clifford points extended Kerry’s lead soon after the restart – in between which Craig Lennon missed a goal chance from 10 metres when played through by Ciarán Keenan.

In the 47th minute, Kerry struck for their first goal, Diarmuid O’Connor pouncing on the rebound to find the net after Niall McDonnell had saved Jason Foley’s shot, as Kerry went 1-17 to 1-7 ahead.

Keenan wasted another Louth goal chance in the 55th minute, blazing his shot over the bar from close range, and seven minutes later O’Shea set up Tadhg Morley for Kerry’s second goal to seal the win.

Kerry: Shane Ryan; Paul Murphy (0-1), Jason Foley, Tom O’Sullivan (0-1); Brian Ó Beaglaioch (0-3), Tadhg Morley (1-0), Gavin White; Diarmuid O’Connor (1-1), Joe O’Connor (0-2); Tony Brosnan (0-1), Paudie Clifford (0-2), Dara Moynihan (0-1); David Clifford (0-7, five frees), Sean O’Shea (0-2, one free), Paul Geaney.

Subs: Cillian Burke for T Brosnan (55 mins), Killian Spillane for P Geaney (55), Dylan Casey for J Foley (67), Mike Breen for T Morley (67), Barry Dan O’Sullivan for J O’Connor (67).

Louth: Niall McDonnell; Donal McKenny (1-0), Dan Corcoran, Dermot Campbell; Conall McKeever, Anthony Williams, Craig Lennon (0-1); Tommy Durnin, Bevan Duffy (0-1); Paul Mathews (0-1), Ciaran Keenan (0-1), Conor Grimes (0-2); Ryan Burns, Sam Mulroy (0-3, two frees), Ciarán Byrne (0-1).

Subs: Leonard Grey for C Lennon (50 mins), Conor Early for P Mathews (52), Tom Jackson for R Burns (60), Liam Jackson for C Byrne (67), Peter McStravick for B Duffy (67).

Referee: Conor Lane (Cork)