Lahardane MacHales All Ireland semi-final fixture confirmed by GAA
By Matthew Reilly
Mayo junior football champions Lahardane McHale's will face north Kerry side Listowel Emmet’s in the All-Ireland junior club semi-final on January, 6 at 1 p.m. in Tullamore. The game will also be live-streamed on Sport TG4’s youtube channel.
Listowel Emmet’s beat Kilmurry of Cork on a score line of 0-9 to 1-2 on an awkward day for football in the Munster junior football final.
Much like Lahardane’s win in the fog, Listowel Emmet’s won their provincial gong under a heavy cross-field breeze. But Emmet's did the best they could with the conditions. It took a while for Emmet's to find their feet but at around 9 minutes in they opened the scoring from a free by David Keane on the 13.
Listowel followed this up 5 minutes later when wing forward Sam Tarrant put over a free to double the advantage. Bryan Sweeney won a ball on the 21 turned onto the left and popped another one over for the Kerry men. Tarrant pointed another free to increase the gap to 4 at half time. Kilmurry were quite disappointing in the first half, not even registering a single point in the opening 30, quite a different display from when they had a narrow defeat to Fossa at the same stage last year.
As the second half started it looked as if Emmet’s would struggle shooting into the car park end, as Kilmurry failed to score for a full 34 minutes into the game. It only took the black and amber five minutes into the second half to get on the scoresheet when wing back Seán Keane got his first with a cracking score outside the D.
Keane added another to his tally 4 minutes later as he sat one defender down and cut in onto his right to slot another over. Kilmurry finally got their opening score 38 minutes into the game from another wing back Tomás Collins driving up the pitch. Another free from Tarrant restored the lead to 6. Jamie Mcveigh got a point just before Seán got his third score of the day to increase the lead to eight. Kilmurry got a late consolation but what a score it was from corner back Brian Hinchion from just inside the 45, he threw a boot at it, and it sailed over the bar. Kilmurry managed to get a late goal from sub, Greg Barret after a probing ball into the square reduced the lead to 4.
The score line flattered Kilmurry as it was domination from start to finish by the north Kerry men who look forward to playing fellow black and amber clad champions, Lahardane McHale's in Tullamore on January, 6.