Rampant Kerry brush fourteen man Tipperary aside with ease

Kerry 1-19

Tipperary 1-8

Favourites Kerry breezed through to the Munster senior football semi-final when they scored an emphatic victory over hosts Tipperary at Semple Stadium this evening.

Even allowiong for the fact that Tipperary played most of the second half with fourteen men, and ten minutes of that with just thirteen men, the Kerry victory was never in doubt and despite Tipperary's heroic efforts at containing them, they just could not stop the green and gold juggernaut.

Conditions were absolutely perfect for this game with Semple Stadium in splendid order. And, it was great to hear a crowd at the games again, adding atmosphere, decibels and ambience to proceedings.

Tipperary knew they had the up the ante on their league form a number of notches, but the big question going into this game was; could they do that? And, even if they could, would it be good enough to offer a serious challenge to the highly fancied visitors from The Kingdom?

Tipp matched Kerry well enough for ten minutes as they attempted to keep ball. However, they found it very hard to penetrate the Kerry rearguard and when David Clifford bagged a fine goal in the 15th minute, the gap between started to widen - Kerry leading by 1-4 to a point by the water break with Conor Sweeney getting Tipp's score from a free.

Tipp had a Conor Sweeney penalty goal in the 28th minute after Jack Kennedy was fouled going through - no black card though - and the score brought Tipp to within four points of Kerry. However, the visitors added four unanswered points through Sean O'Shea (3) and Diarmuid O'Connor to take a half time lead of 1-11 to 1-3 to the dressingroom having played with the aid of the breeze.

The Kerry lead was nine points by the second half water break, but Tipp were down to thirteen men at this stage - Michael Quinlivan receiving a straight red card in the 15th minute and then Jason Lonergan receiving a black card three minutes later. As if competing with Kerry was not hard enough, Tipp now had to do it with thirteen men. 

The Kerry men emptied the bench without weakening their side in the closing stages and they ran out comfortable winners despite Tipperary's efforts right to the final whistle.