All-Ireland SFC Round One<\/p>\n
Donegal 2-20 Kerry 0-16<\/p>\n
By Paul Brennan at Fitzgerald Stadium<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t get much better than taking down the reigning champions. Not just that, but Donegal schooled Kerry in Killarney, taking them for a 10-point win that was reminiscent of their 13-point success when they teams met in the Allianz Football League Division One final two months ago.<\/p>\n
For context, Kerry had to play the entire second half with 14 men after Micheal Burns was sent off before the start of the second period. After what had been a lively and spiky first half, after which Donegal led by five at the break, 1-11 to 0-9, the numerical disadvantage turned the second half into a procession.<\/p>\n
Quite what the result means in terms of the bigger picture remains to be seen, but how \u2013 if \u2013 Kerry recover from this will be a test of all their mental and physical fortitude.<\/p>\n
For Donegal, the performance put to bed any lingering doubts that their Ulster quarter-final shock defeat to Down might be anything more than a one-off blip. The League champions certainly took up where they left off in how they stripped Kerry of that title back in March.<\/p>\n
Donegal started brightly as Ciaran Moore put the ball in the Kerry net inside 90 seconds, with Oisin Gallen and Ryan McHugh firing over two-pointers to put Donegal 1-4 to 0-1 ahead after seven minutes.<\/p>\n
Kerry, playing against a stiff wind, composed themselves and fired back with points from the Clifford brothers and Graham O\u2019Sullivan, before Dylan Geaney hit back to back scores to make it 1-6 to 0-8 after 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
Langan raised Donegal\u2019s third orange flag, Max Campbell then made it 1-9 to 0-8, before Gallen and Langan pushed the visitors into that five-point lead at the interval.<\/p>\n
That might have been a manageable deficit for Kerry to bridge had they all their resources on the field, but Burns\u2019s dismissal was a game-changer.<\/p>\n
Gallen and Langan were on target early in the second half to extend Donegal\u2019s lead and thereafter it was a masterclass in game management from Jim McGuinness\u2019s side and Kerry were ran ragged.<\/p>\n
Tony Brosnan tried to ignite an unlikely comeback with a two-pointer on 50 minutes to make it 1-14 to 0-11, but Murphy silenced the boos from the Kerry section in the 21,738 crowd with a point to make it 1-16 to 0-11, and substitute Shea Malone decorated the victory with a goal four minutes from the end.<\/p>\n
Scorers for Donegal: M Langan 0-5 (1 tp), O Gallen 0-5 (1 tp), C Moore 1-1, S Malone 1-1, R McHugh 0-2 (tp), P Mogan 0-2, M Murphy 0-1, M Campbell 0-1, S O\u2019Donnell 0-1, J McGee 0-1.<\/p>\n
Scorers for Kerry: D Clifford 0-4 (1 tp, 1f), T Brosnan 0-4 (2 tp), D Geaney 0-3, T Morley 0-1, G O\u2019Sullivan 0-1, M Burns 0-1, P Clifford 0-1, C Trant 0-1.<\/p>\n
Donegal: G Mulreany, M Campbell, B McCole, P Mogan, R McHugh, E B\u00e1n Gallagher, F Roarty, C McGonagle, H McFadden, J McGee, M Langan, C Moore, C O\u2019Donnell, M Murphy.<\/p>\n
Subs: Shane O\u2019Donnell for R McHugh (inj, ht), Shea Malone for O Gallen (56), Ryan McHugh for F Roarty (59), Daire \u00d3 Baoill for M Murphy (60), Turlough Carr for H McFadden (63), Sean Martin for M Campbell (64).<\/p>\n
Kerry: S Murphy; E Looney, J Foley, D Casey; T Morley, M Breen, G O\u2019Sullivan; M O\u2019Shea, S O\u2019Brien, D O\u2019Connor; M Burns, K Evans, P Clifford, D Clifford, D Geaney.<\/p>\n
Subs: Eddie Healy for T Morley (ht), Tony Brosnan for P Clifford (45), Brian \u00d3 Beaglaoich for G O\u2019Sullivan (temp, 45-ft), Joe O\u2019Connor for K Evans (47), Killian Spillane for D Geaney (56), Cillian Trant for S O\u2019Brien (59).<\/p>\n
Referee: Sean Hurson (Tyrone).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All-Ireland SFC Round One Donegal 2-20 Kerry 0-16 By Paul Brennan at Fitzgerald Stadium It doesn\u2019t get much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-464148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}