Listless Cork felled by Qualifier kings Kildare

By Brendan O’Brien, Semple Stadium

Kildare 1-21 Cork 1-13

Kildare more than lived up to their reputation as the Qualifier kings with a comprehensive victory over a disappointingly flat Cork side in their All-Ireland qualifier Round 4A qualifier at Semple Stadium this evening.

Time and again in recent seasons the Leinster county has resurrected their summer with a long and winding run through the back door. They will now once again see action in the month of August after confounding the majority of pre-match expectations and odds.

Kildare had been heavily beaten by Dublin in Leinster before righting the ship in the Qualifiers, first with a narrow win against Offaly and then with a comprehensive beating of Longford.

Cork, of course, were seven days off a Munster final replay loss to Kerry.

The hangover looked pronounced.

Cork could argue that nothing went right for them on the night between James Loughrey’s early black card, Alan O’Connor’s loss before half-time with suspected knee damage and Conor Dorman hitting the crossbar soon after the interval.

Not to mention Kevin O’Driscoll’s straight red after 55 minutes.

That would be to gloss over a listlessness that made one wonder how this was the same group of players who had a Munster title snatched from their grasp by Kerry. To think, too, that Kildare probably should have lost their summer opener to Laois.

Such is the beauty, sometimes terrible, of the qualifiers.

The sides chaperoned each other closely through the first 25 minutes or so with the scores standing at four points apiece before Kildare went on the rampage to claim eight of the next nine white flags before the half-time whistle.

Dorman hitting the crossbar with a palmed effort after 37 minutes was compounded shortly after when Niall Kelly – superb all evening – finished off a team move at the far end with a lovely effort to the net and suddenly Kildare led by seven.

Cork fell away thereafter and the gap had grown to a dozen points before Colm O’Neill caught the Kildare defence napping when sending a free low into the semi-guarded net with 13 minutes to go.

Points soon after from Colm O’Neill and Brian Hurley gave the hint of it being an unlikely comeback.

It wasn’t.

Kildare steadied and saw out the remainder of this comfortably enough despite losing Emmet Bolton to a late red card.

Scorers for Kildare: N Kelly (1-3); E O’Flaherty (0-5 frees); P Fogarty (0-3, 1 free); A Smith and P Cribbin (0-2); M Donnellan (0-2 frees); O Lyons, E Doyle, P O’Neill, C McNally (all 0-1).

Scorers for Cork: C O’Neill (1-4, 1-2 frees): D O’Connor (0-5, 4 frees); B O’Driscoll, M Collins, P Kerrigan and B Hurley (all 0-1).

Kildare: M Donnellan; O Lyons, C Fitzpatrick, M O’Grady; K Mufrnaghan, E Doyle, E Bolton; T Moolick, P Cribbin; C McNally, E O’Flaherty, P O’Neill; N Kelly, A Smith, E Callaghan. Subs: P Fogarty for Callaghan (inj, 35+4); P Kelly for O’Grady (38); M Sherry for O’Flaherty (black card, 51); M Conway for McNally (57); F Conway for Kelly (64); G Whyte for Smith (71).

Cork: K O’Halloran; S Cronin, J O’Sullivan, M Shields; C Dorman, J Loughrey, B O’Driscoll; A O’Connor, E Cadogan; C O’Driscoll, M Collins, K O’Driscoll; C O’Neill, D O’Connor, P Kerrigan. Subs: B O’Driscoll for Loughrey, black card (12); F Goold for O’Connor (inj, 20); B Hurley for C O’Driscoll (HT); T Clancy for Cronin (43); J O’Rourke for Dorman (48); D Og Hodnett for O’Sullivan (66).

Referee: M Duffy (Sligo).