Emotional day for Kildare

ALL-IRELAND SFC QUALIFIERS ROUND ONE Kildare 0-15 Antrim 0-15:DERMOT EARLEY lined out for Kildare just a matter of hours after burying his father, but a late Paddy Cunningham free that brought his tally for the evening to 10 points ensured the teams will have to do it all over again at Casement Park on Saturday.

St Conleth’s Park was a cauldron of emotion as a minute’s applause was held for the late Dermot Earley Snr.

Earley’s team-mates played with an intensity and workrate that was absent in the championship defeat to Louth and they should really have won this game.

That they didn’t can be attributed primarily to an appalling conversion rate – they had 21 wides, 13 in the first half.

They also spurned two gilt-edged goal chances.

On top of that, the Lilywhites had a good shout for a penalty turned down in the first half of extra-time, when the brilliant Ronan Sweeney seemed to be pushed in the parallelogram.

It wasn’t the only decision by Maurice Deegan to anger the home side, as the referee pinged Kildare for 37 frees compared to 27 against Antrim. Amazingly, 10 of those against Kildare arrived in the opening 16 minutes.

And with Cunningham almost faultless, that kept Antrim in the game.

Some fine points by Gary White, James Kavanagh and Sweeney helped Kildare establish a two-point lead entering the end of normal time, but after Cunningham halved the deficit, Kevin McGourty kicked his third from play to bring extra-time.

KILDARE: S McCormack; P Kelly, H McGrillen, A Mac Lochlainn; M O'Flaherty, E Bolton (0-1), B Flanagan; D Flynn, D Earley; H Lynch, E Callaghan, J Kavanagh (0-1); P O'Neill (0-2), J Doyle (0-7, 6f), R Sweeney (0-2). Subs: G White (0-1) for Lynch 25; E O'Flaherty (0-1) for Flanagan 50; T O'Connor for O'Neill 70; K Donnelly for Earley, K Cribbin for M O'Flaherty both 71; O'Neill for Donnelly 81; M O'Flaherty for Callaghan 85; Earley for E O'Flaherty 87.

ANTRIM: S McGreevy; A Healy, C Brady, J Crozier; J Loughrey, T Scullion, K O'Boyle (0-1); B Herron, M McCann; A Gallagher, T McCann (0-1), K McGourty (0-3); K Niblock, P Cunningham (0-10, 9f), K Brady. Subs: CJ McGourty for Brady 40; S Finch for T McCann 54; S Kelly for Healy 64; P Doherty for Niblock 66; T McCann for Herron 85.

Referee: M Deegan(Laois).