Galway through to minor final

Galway 2-14 Kerry 0-17

Galway qualified for their first All-Ireland minor football final since 1994 thanks to a three-point win over Kerry at Croke Park today.

Defender Conor Doherty was impressive for the Tribesmen in the opening half with 1-1 to his credit while Tommy Walsh was their other goalscorer, inside a minute. However despite Galway’s good early groundwork, the sides were level at the interval at 2-5 to 0-11.

Kerry firmly relied on the efforts of full-forward BJ Walsh who scored eight points but Galway weren’t to be denied.

Both teams certainly produced a riveting encounter with Galway taking the better of the early exchanges and holding an early 0-3 to 0-0 advantage thanks to points from Damien Reddington, Doherty and full-forward Michael Martyn.

Kerry then went on a scoring streak of their own and the sides were level 0-3 apiece after 12 minutes. However the Kingdom lads didn’t stop there and broke into a two point lead thanks to scores from Eoin Kennedy and BJ Walsh.

John Kennedy’s Kerry side continued to hold the lead until the 25th minute, when the first goal of the hour was produced. This was a well-worked move which started from a Martyn free being passed to Reddington; the corner forward dispatched a quick pass to Tommy Walsh and the half-forward had no problem in blasting the ball to the net with his left boot.

Suddenly the sides were level, but Galway had the ball inside a minute in the back of the Kerry net for the second time. This was a powerful shot from defender Conor Doherty and it came following good support play from Irish underage rugby international John O’Brien.

However it was Kerry who were strongest before the interval, to outscore their opponents by 0-4 to 0-1 to ensure the teams were level at half-time.

Galway began the second half as they intended to continue with points from Martyn and team captain Paul Conroy but the teams were to be level on three occasions during the second half and Galway only managed to pull away in the closing ten minutes, despite Kerry always threatening for an equalising goal.

GALWAY: GALWAY: O Higgins; D Rhattigan, C Forde, K Kelly; C Doherty (1-1), D O’Reilly, T Fahy; P Conroy (0-2), A Griffin; JJ Greaney, T Walsh (1-1, 1f), J O’Brien (0-1); J Ryan, M Martyn (0-4, 2f), D Reddington (0-3). Subs: E O’Mahony (0-1) for Greaney (38); J Burke (0-1) for Ryan (51)

KERRY: T Mac an tSaoir; D O’Sullivan, B Shanahan, B Russell; I Somers, B O’Leary, P Costelloe; J Buckley (0-1), W Gutherie (0-1); J Doolan, C O’Shea (0-3), JB Spillane; T O’Sullivan, BJ Walsh (0-8, 5f), E Kennedy (0-4, 1f). Subs: M Ó Sé for Doolan (33); A O’Donoghue for T O’Sullivan (53); K O’Connor for Gutherie (54); C Ó Muircheartaigh for Shanahan (57)

REFEREE: Cormac Reilly (Meath)