Kerins O'Rahillys

Tralee's Kerins O'Rahillys won their first Munster club senior football title at a sunny Mallow, the match changed from Pairc Ui Rinn due to weather ...

In first half injury time Walsh’s mark reduced the deficit to the minimum but both teams went off knowing they had left huge room for improvement. The game exploded to life after a poor first half at the end of which Newcastle West led 0-4 to 0-3. Walsh was their chief attacking threat but they also had a huge contribution from Cormac Coffey, who man-marked Sheehan, the All-Star nominee. Their three scores came from two Jack Savage frees and a mark by Tommy Walsh. But the Kerry side, beaten in their only other Munster final appearance in 2009, held on and were extremely relived to hear the final whistle. Within a minute, straight from the kick out, Walsh won another high ball and this time, bottled up, he found Barry John Keane.

The Strand Road Club win their first provincial crown – the eighth Kerry team to do so – thanks to two goals in the space of five minutes.

Eoin Hurley (free) and Tom Hoare traded scores as defences began to adapt to the new means of examination. Walsh grabbed it and laid off for Barry John Keane to almost rip the rigging off the roof of the net. Strand Road were reliant on frees for their scoring threat in the first half. Otherwise, Newcastle West were congesting the half-back line and turning back Strand Road runners. McMahon saved fair warning of his danger forcing a save from Shane Foley but after winning possession again to set up a Cian Sheehan shot, McMahon was goal-hanging for the rebound off the post. Bryan Nix for Murphy (51) Diarmuid O’Sullivan for Hayes (58) Ryan Carroll for Barrett (38) At the other end, McMahon gathered two balls fed in, leading to a goal and another goal chance. A game that featured seven scores and one goal chance in the first half suddenly had three goals and another saved inside nine minutes. Cormac Coffey burst forward to make it a four-point lead, 1-5 to 0-4. David Moran won the kick out and was fouled.

They have become the first club since Dr Crokes in 2006 to win the Munster title without being champions of their own county.

However, Walsh pulled another ball from the skies and fed Keane to slam in a second goal and restore the four-point lead in the 39th minute but the hectic start to the second half couldn’t last. O’Rahillys added only one further point, from Tom Hoare in the 47th minute, but Newcastle endured an 18-minute scoring lull themselves amid much wastefulness before laying siege to their opponents goal in the closing minutes as Savage was sent off for a black card to add to his earlier yellow in the 59th minute. Eoin Hurley got Newcastle off the mark with a free in the fifth minute and Shane Stack curled in a fine point six minutes later to put them in front before Savage equalised with a fine free from some 45 metre. O’Rahillys were off the mark within a minute of the throw-in as Gavin O’Brien charged upfield and won a free which Jack Savage converted but they found it difficult to make inroads up front thereafter, adding just two more points for the rest of the half. Newcastle were bidding to become just the third Limerick club to claim provincial honours after Thomond College in 1977 and Dromcollogher-Broadford in 2008 but having led for most of the first half they were rocked by Walsh goal early in the second half and though they replied in kind through Mike McMahon, the big full-forward laid on another for Barry John Keane shortly after. With O’Rahillys clinging onto a two-point lead, and down to 14 men after Jack Savage’s dismissal, amid a fierce onslaught from the Limerick champions in the dying moments, Newcastle West sub Aaron Neville burst through only to see his drive just skim over Shane Foley’s crossbar in the fourth minute of injury time.

In a game played in a frosty but glorious Mallow, it was an evenly matched tie in the opening 15 minutes.It was low scoring but a tightly contested game ...

It was low scoring but a tightly contested game between the sides, it was level pegging at 2 points a piece at the quarter hour mark. In a game played in a frosty but glorious Mallow, it was an evenly matched tie in the opening 15 minutes. But the game really came to life in the early stages of the second half, with 3 goals in the space of 5 minutes, 2 for Rahillys and 1 for Newcastlewest, which put Rahillys into a 4 point lead, 2-5 to 1-4.