Kerry 3-19 Cork 2-7
Kerry are through to the All-Ireland final after hammering rivals Cork by 15 points at Croke Park this afternoon. In a ill-tempered match, neither side finished the game with their full compliment of players.
Paidi O’Se’s side dazzled their travelling fans with a sublime performance while Cork looked a mere shadow of the team that ousted Kerry in last month’s Munster final replay and to compound their misfortune the Rebels had captain Colin Corkery sent off for a second bookable offence.
Kerry ripped into their opponents from the throw-in and were ahead five points to no score after just six minutes. Full forward Dara O’Cinneide opened their account while his nippy colleague Colin Cooper followed suit soon after.
Cooper and Mike Frank Russell destroyed the Cork full back line with an array of trickery, forcing Cork boss Larry Tompkins to reshuffle the marking duties in his defensive ranks. Eoin Sexton, Anthony Lynch and Sean Levis all found themselves tracking both corner forwards at one time or another.
Russell continued to prove a handful, tricking the Cork backs with his silky, purposeful runs and clever positioning. The Laune Rangers hitman - having already smacked over three scores in the opening 16 minutes - capitalised on an Anthony Lynch fumble to sneak in behind the defence and beat Cork ‘keeper Kevin O’Dwyer with a fine shot for the game’s opening goal.
Cruising by this stage, Kerry never looked like easing off while Cork were left utterly demoralised and struggled to find their way into the Kerry half at times. The Rebels were left thunderstruck when Cooper side-footed the ball home five minutes before the break to bring his first half haul to 1-3 and increase Kerry’s lead to 10 points.
Cork, in a rare foray upfield, bagged a goal of their own on the stroke of half-time. Fionnan Murray found himself running into a wall of green and yellow shirts but shipped a pass to Philip Clifford who bundled the ball over the line from close range. Kerry led 2-10 to 1-4 at half-time.
Murray was rewarded for his role in the Clifford goal sixteen minutes after the restart. Cork started to play with a renewed purpose and Murray was often the instigator of a series of well worked plays. On this occasion, Brendan Jer O’Sullivan played a ball in over the Kerry defence which Murray worked hard to latch onto. With the ball in his possession, he burst towards Declan O’Keeffe’s goal and drilled the ball to the roof of the net to close the gap to nine points.
From there on in however, the spirit of the contest took a nose dive as a series of off-the-ball incidents muddied the pattern of play. Twelve minutes into the half, an unruly brawl broke out but Wexford referee Brian White acted swiftly to quash the shenanigans, booking Colin Corkery in the process. Then, with ten minutes remaining, Cork’s goal scorer Murray and Kerry substitute Tom O’Sullivan were dismissed for their role in a bout of off-the-ball jiggery pokery. Corkery swiftly followed after collecting his second yellow for kicking the ball at the referee.
Kerry rounded off the rout, to book their place in the final against either Dublin or Armagh, when Eoin Brosnan found the net with a little bit of help from Cork defender Sean Levis late on.