Kilmallock make light work of meek Midleton to reach Munster SHC final

Kilmallock (Limerick) 0-19 Midleton (Cork) 1-9

This was supposed to be the close encounter of the hurling afternoon. Instead, Kilmallock went to town on a peculiarly wan Midleton side in front of 1,771 hardy souls on the Ennis Road. A game that had the look of a coin toss all week was reduced to a glorified shooting drill for the Limerick champions long before half-time.

It means, among other things, that the dreadful record of Cork clubs in the Munster championship endures into the 2020s. Only one Cork club has prevailed in the province since Midleton themselves did so all the way back in 1987 - if it wasn’t for Newtownshandrum’s trio of titles in the 2000s, the cupboard would be completely bare. By contrast, Limerick clubs have won five of the past 10 editions. There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere.

Kilmallock have every piece of the jigsaw needed to make it six from 11. The wiles of Graeme Mulcahy and Gavin O'Mahony mean they get full value for most balls that go into the full-forward line. Micheál Houlihan was the man of the match here, looking for all the world like a younger, greener Gearóid Hegarty at wing-forward. Barry Hennessy was able to land a free from his own 45, even on winter ground. Plus, they got Paddy O'Loughlin back on the pitch after a year away from the game.

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“We’d do anything to win today,” said Tony Considine afterwards. “Midleton maybe didn’t play above themselves or maybe played what they were allowed to play. When we got on top we stayed there, and that was it.

“We made that commitment to one another the other night, we said, ‘Once we get at these lads early on...’ I watched them in the Cork county final against Glen Rovers and Glen Rovers stood off them for 20-25 minutes. And that put Glen under pressure right away. When they started coming back at them, depriving them of possession, Midleton didn’t like it as they say.

“They like to run around and play the ball. But we had the lads to run around with them, and the lads to take the ball off them as well. And we got the scores. We got 19 points, which was fantastic.”

Considine has seen and done it all, of course. But still the game courses through him. The big unknown coming in here was whether or not his side might be stale having had a seven-week break since the Limerick county final. They answered the question with a fairly abrupt sense of purpose.

They were fresh as morning croissants, snapping into the early exchanges like they’d been catapulted from the dressing room. Midleton weren’t given a chance to clear their throat.

Houlihan was a revelation, in the first half especially. Leggy and broad-shouldered, he strikes every ball like he’s trying to put a sliotar-shaped hole in his hurley. Yet he was deadly accurate here, ending the day with 0-11, including four points from play.

His strike from the right sideline on nine minutes was his classiest of the day, whipped off his back foot within seconds of Sean O’Meara bringing Midleton level. It put Kimallock into a lead they never relinquished. Indeed, Midleton didn’t score again until just short of the break, by which time the game was a dead duck.

“We prepared well and we came down intending to take the fight to Kilmallock,” said Midelton manager Ger Fitzgerald afterwards. “But we didn’t, really. We never got into the game. It just didn’t happen for us on the day, we’ve no excuses. We can’t say we didn’t want it or we can’t say we didn’t apply ourselves in the weeks leading up to it or do anything different in terms of our preparation for this match compared to any match in the county championship.

“We’re extremely disappointed but we’re proud of what we achieved this year, in saying all that, and the effort and performances we got out of our fellas. We wouldn’t like our performance to diminish from that. It is a bit of a disappointment, though. We never got to the pitch of the game.”

Kilmallock were relentless in that first half. They hunted in packs and their half-forward line especially never gave the Midleton defenders time on the ball. Houlihan had seven points on the board by the break and also set up Oisin O’Neill for a smart score. When the counting stopped, Kilmallock led by 0-12 to 0-3 at the break.

And although Conor Lehane was able to wriggle through for a quick necklace of scores midway through the second half, the Cork champions never threatened to make a game of it. Tommy O’Connell got in for a late goal but it carried no weight by that stage. Having coughed up 10 goals in the group stages in Limerick, Kilmallock have turned meaner and meaner as the winter has gone on. No bad habit to carry into a final.

“I said it all the time,” said Considine. “If we can stop these scores going in at the back, we’re going to give some team a bit of a hiding. Now, we didn’t give Midleton a hiding here today but I think we were in control from the word go really. Once we got on top, we proved that the things we’ve been working on have borne fruit.”

Kilmallock: Barry Hennessy (0-1, free); Liam English, Mark O'Loughlin, Dan Joy; Philip O'Loughlin, Ciaran O'Connor, Paudie O'Brien (0-1); Robbie Hanley (0-1), Aaron Costello; Micheál Houlihan (0-11, 0-7 frees), Oisin O'Reilly (0-2), David Woulfe; Graeme Mulcahy (0-1), Gavin O'Mahony, Kevin O'Donnell (0-1). Subs: Paddy O'Loughlin for Costello, 55 mins; Conor Hanley (0-1) for Woulfe, 59 mins; Conor Stanton for Philip O'Loughlin, 60 mins; Robbie Egan for O'Reilly, 61 mins; Brian Daly for English, 64 mins.

Midleton: Brion Saunderson; Eoin Moloney, Luke Idneen, Sean O'Leary Hayes; Ciarmhac Smyth, Tommy O'Connell (1-0), Cormac Walsh; Paul Haughney, Sam Quirke; Conor Lehane (0-6, 0-3 frees), Garan Manley, Pa White; Luke O'Farrell, Cormac Beausang (0-1), Sean O'Meara (0-1). Subs: Seamus O'Farrell for Smyth (blood), 20-21 mins; Seamus O'Farrell for Haughney, 37 mins; Alex Quirke for Manley, 43 mins; Aaron Mulcahy for White, 43 mins; Pádraig O'Keefe (0-1) for O'Meara, 49 mins.

Referee: Michael Kennedy (Tipperary)