Kildare dominate sluggish Dublin

O'BYRNE CUP SEMI-FINALS Kildare 1-11 Dublin 0-8KILDARE WERE far too good for a flaccid Dublin in yesterday's Bórd na Móna O'Byrne Cup semi-final in Newbridge. The All-Ireland champions gave one of those sluggish displays not unusual at this time of the year, as their largely experimental line-up (just five of the All-Ireland line-up started) laboured in the sunshine at St Conleth's Park.

The home crowd in a decent attendance of 6,086 would have been pleased with what was a rare victory over the city visitors and progress to the final where they will defend their title against DCU but there was little revelatory on show for either county.

Kildare’s defence was excellent, sharp and decisive, and restricted Dublin’s starting attack to two scores from play. Peter Kelly, on the rehab train after last year’s cruciate injury, looked very good and marked Paddy Andrews well while Ollie Lyons impressed in the other corner.

The messages elsewhere were mixed. Darryl Flynn and Ronan Sweeney provided a solid platform at centrefield but the shots to scores ratio again proved disappointing for the home side with some dismal wides and a few efforts dropped short to add to the wasted opportunities.

Manager Kieran McGeeney could perhaps reflect positively on the fact that three of his replacements – Hugh McGrillen, Fionn Dowling and Rob Kelly – scored from play but overall it was hardly surprising that he reiterated afterwards the welcome he would have on the mat for Seánie Johnston, the restless Cavan forward, as told to local radio last week.

On reduced rations Dublin kept pace with their opponents in the first half, cashing in their comparatively meagre chances mostly though Tomás Quinn’s dead ball kicking but Andrews added another and Kildare led by just 0-5 to 0-4 at half-time.

Certain conventions of the genre remained intact and Eoghan O’Flaherty was sent off for two rapid-fire yellow cards in the 30th minute and not to be outdone Dublin matched the handicap eight minutes into the second half when Paul Brogan, who had been playing well, walked for a similar brace of cards.

Michael Darragh Macauley also walked but for precautionary reasons, his 11th-minute yellow card suggesting that he was having one of those days where the risk of another would be too great. Substituted by Diarmuid Connolly, Macauley’s place was taken by Eamonn Fennell, causing his experimental placing at full forward to be aborted.

The few minutes around Brogan’s sending off proved decisive in that it was shortly preceded by a good save from Andrews by Shane Connolly and not long afterwards followed by a precise Sweeney penalty, awarded against Seán Murray for a foul on Tomás O’Connor.

McGeeney was probably right to be sceptical about the importance of the 47th-minute goal, given his team’s superiority but it crystallised their hold on the match, extending the narrow 0-6 to 0-5 lead to four – a target that a struggling Dublin attack looked most unlikely to attain.

Diarmuid Connolly was lucky not to follow Brogan after a 56th-minute melee – instead getting one of the 11 yellow cards flashed on the afternoon along with James Kavanagh.

McGeeney was dismissive of the suggestion that he would be treasuring this win over the Dubs. “It seemed to be more important for youse than it was for me. For the players at this time of the year the big thing is to stake a claim to a place against Tyrone (first league match) and try to keep it.

“That’s what they’re keen on and that’s how the team operates: you play well at training and you get in and if you play well, you stay in . . . that’s how we try and keep it, to keep the competition up.”

His counterpart Pat Gilroy was stoic in the face of defeat. “The better team won today and that was it. We had our chances in the second-half and maybe if we had got one of those goals it might have been a closer game but in fairness Kildare were much better than us today.

“I was happy enough with our effort, we were probably a bit heavy-legged at times and that’s fine, we are preparing for the league. They missed a lot as well so the final score probably wasn’t fair to them in the end.”

KILDARE: S Connolly; O Lyons, C Fitzpatrick, P Kelly; B Flanagan, T O'Neill, E O'Flaherty; D Flynn, R Sweeney (1-1, 1-0 pen); T Moolick, M Conway (0-3, 0-1 45), P O'Neill; A Smith (0-3, 0-1 free), T O'Connor (0-1), J Kavanagh. Subs: H McGrillen (0-1) for Moolick (half-time), R Kelly (0-1) for O'Neill (47 mins), F Dowling (0-1) for Smith (47 mins), E Callaghan for Kavanagh (58 mins).

DUBLIN: M Savage; M Fitzsimons, S Murray, D Daly; C O'Sullivan, G Brennan, D Byrne; MD Macauley, R O'Connell; B Cullen (0-1), K McManamon, P Brogan; P Andrews (0-1), E Fennell, T Quinn (0-5, 0-4 frees, 0-1 lineball). Subs: D Connolly for Macauley (21 mins), D Lally for Brennan (46 mins), B McManamon (0-1) for Quinn (53 mins), G McIntyre for Andrews (55 mins), J Small for Daly (69 mins).

Referee: E Kinsella (Laois).