Real fright for Kerry

All-Ireland SHC Qualifier/Derry ... 2-15 Derry ... 1-16: A strongly fancied Kerry side received a real fright before scraping past injured-ravaged Derry in Tullamore to reach the fourth round qualifier.

In the end, Kerry just did enough to earn a meeting against Limerick.

A brave and battling Derry side might well have pulled off a surprise had their forwards not squandered so many favourable scoring opportunities in the second half, during which they shot nine wides while enjoying wind advantage.

Derry relied too heavily on free-taker, centre forward and captain Oliver Collins for their scores. Deadly accurate from placed balls he accounted for 0-15 of their total, failing with only one attempt.

Kerry sprinted into an early lead with two pointed frees by Michael Slattery and one from play by John Mike Dooley, but once Derry settled down they drew level by the 12th minute, thanks to three pointed frees by Collins.

The scores were level on two further occasions, but coming up to the break, goals by Slattery and Dooley in the space of two minutes gave the Kingdom a 2-8 to 0-6 interval lead.

Points were swapped on a regular basis on the change of ends, with the accurate free-taking of Collins keeping the Ulster side in touch and when Michael Conway raced through for a 58th minute goal, Derry got to within three points of their opponents.

Try as they might, however, they could not get a goal that would have brought the game to extra time.

KERRY: J Healy; T Cronin, A Healy, I Brick; J McCarthy, C Flaherty, C Harris; A Cronin, P Cronin; L Boyle, B Brick (0-1), P O'Connell (0-3); J Dooley (1-1), G O'Brien (0-1), M Slattery (1-8), (six frees, one 65).Subs: K O'Sullivan (0-1) for Boyle. H Twomey for McCarthy, M Lucid for A Cronin.

DERRY: K Stevenson; K Hinphey, E McKeever, C Brunton; B Ward, D Magill, P O'Kane; A McChrystal, G Biggs; L Henchey (0-1); O Collins (0-15, 13 frees), R Convery; D McGrellis, M Conway (1-0), C McKeever, Subs: J O'Dwyer for C McKeever. G Brunton for Ward. P Cartin for K Hinphey M Collins for O'Dwyer.

Referee: E Morris (Dublin).

• Monaghan deservedly advanced to the final of the Ulster Under-21 hurling shield final, beating Donegal by 4-9 to 1-8 in a very entertaining semi-final that was played as the curtain raiser to the Monaghan versus Meath game in Clones on Saturday.

Donegal got off to the best possible start with a goal by Enda McDermott after just 30 seconds and they went on to dominate the first quarter, adding points by Dara O'Brien, Jamesie Donnelly and Damien Green to lead by six and with Monaghan yet to score.

By half time, though, Monaghan had recovered and had turned that early six points deficit into a three points lead with two goals by Ronan Meegan and Michael Lennon to leave the half time score Monaghan 2-5, Donegal 1-5.

Monaghan continued to dominate the second half with a second goal by Meegan in the sixth minute kick-starting a purple patch that saw them hit 1-4 without reply to lead by nine points at the end of the third quarter.

Donegal rallied briefly with a point by Jamesie Donnelly but a fourth goal, by 16-year-old Gary Boyd, wrapped up the result for Monaghan who now play Armagh in the final on Saturday.