{"id":510002,"date":"2026-06-20T18:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T18:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/510002\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T18:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T18:40:09","slug":"clifford-sparkles-as-goal-hungry-kerry-demolish-armagh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/510002\/","title":{"rendered":"Clifford sparkles as goal-hungry Kerry demolish Armagh"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Clifford starred as Kerry kept alive their All-Ireland title defence with a commanding 13-point victory over Armagh to ease into next weekend’s quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

The reigning Footballer of the Year picked off 1-10 as the home supporters at Fitzgerald Stadium went home happy with a convincing win against the 2024 champions.<\/p>\n

The Kingdom finished strongly with two goals in each half in front of almost 25,000 spectators in Killarney.<\/p>\n

First-half goals from Clifford and Paul Geaney were the difference as Kerry took a six-point lead into the half-time break \u2013 2-08 to 0-08 \u2013 before goals from Joe O\u2019Connor and Keith Evans ultimately put an emphatic gloss on the scoreline, ending Armagh\u2019s interest in the championship.<\/p>\n

Kerry now await Monday morning\u2019s draw to see who they face in the last eight.<\/p>\n

\"David
\nClifford celebrates his first-half goal<\/p>\n

After an understandably nervy start to this All-Ireland series Round 3 knockout tie, it was Kieran McGeeney’s side that took an early stronghold on proceedings, leading 0-04 to 0-01 early on with Ross McQuillan, Jason Duffy, Ois\u00edn Conaty and Cian McConville raising white flags.<\/p>\n

The sides were level on the 13th minute as Kingdom talisman Clifford took full advantage of a superb defence-splitting pass from Dylan Geaney to raise the game\u2019s first green flag, finding himself in space behind the cover defence.<\/p>\n

It was nip-and-tuck before a Dylan Geaney two-pointer put the hosts three points up for the first time. Conor Turbitt (free) and Conaty pointed without response to narrow the deficit to one, but a Clifford orange flag restored the three-point advantage.<\/p>\n

The Kingdom got their second goal seconds before the break, a well-taken counter-attack finished off by Paul Geaney whose effort trickled along the ground into the empty net as Armagh goalkeeper Ethan Rafferty could only watch on from the Kerry half.<\/p>\n

Seconds later, the buzzer sounded for half time as Kerry took a healthy six-point lead into the break.<\/p>\n

\"Joe
\nJoe O’Connor scores Kerry’s third goal against Armagh<\/p>\n

It was all but game over in the 45th minute when the impressive Joe O\u2019Connor scored Kerry\u2019s third goal, making it a 11-point game with 25 minutes remaining on the clock, Geaney providing the assist once again.<\/p>\n

By the time Clifford slotted over a two-point five minutes later, Kerry\u2019s fifth score without reply, Jack O\u2019Connor\u2019s men had opened up a very comfortable 15-point lead.<\/p>\n

Armagh briefly stopped the rot when substitute Ois\u00edn O\u2019Neill tapped over a free in the 51st minute to reduce the gap to 14.<\/p>\n

However, that proved nothing but a mini-revival as Kerry scored the next two points with full-back Jason Foley and wing-back Graham O\u2019Sullivan getting involved in the scoring action.<\/p>\n

S\u00e9an O’Shea’s introduction from the bench minutes later was met with a loud cheer from the Kingdom faithful as the Kenmare man returned from injury to make for his first championship appearance this year.<\/p>\n

Armagh to their credit continued to battle, with Conaty and Andrew Murnin both adding two-point scores, but Kerry had the final say.<\/p>\n

As stoppage time approached, substitute Keith Evans burst through a stretched Armagh defence, looping the ball over an outcoming Rafferty for Kerry\u2019s fourth goal to complete a dominant second-half performance and end Armagh\u2019s interest in this year\u2019s championship.<\/p>\n

Kerry: Shane Murphy; Paul Murphy, Jason Foley (0-01), Dylan Casey; Brian \u00d3 Beaglaoich, Mike Breen, Graham O’Sullivan (0-01); Mark O’Shea, Se\u00e1n O’Brien; Joe O’Connor (1-00), Paudie Clifford, Diarmuid O’Connor; David Clifford (1-10 1tpf, 2f, 1tpf) Paul Geaney (capt.) (1-01), Dylan Geaney (0-05, 1tp)<\/p>\n

Subs: Gavin White for \u00d3 Beaglaoich (52 minutes), Se\u00e1n O\u2019Shea for Paul Geaney (54), Keith Evans (1-00) for O\u2019Brien (56), Evan Looney for Murphy, Tony Brosnan for O\u2019Shea (both 61), Armin Heinrich for Casey (65)<\/p>\n

Armagh: Ethan Rafferty (0-02, 1tpf); Peter McGrane, Aaron McKay, Gareth Murphy; Paddy Burns, Tiernan Kelly, Jarly \u00d3g Burns; Andrew Murnin (0-02, 1tp), Joe McElroy; Cian McConville (0-01f), Darragh McMullen, Ross McQuillan (0-03); Conor Turbit (0-02, 1f), Jason Duffy (0-02), Oisin Conaty (0-04, 1tp)<\/p>\n

Subs: Ois\u00edn O\u2019Neill (0-01, 1f) for \u00d3g Burns, T\u00f3mas McCormack for McElroy (both 47 minutes), Callum O\u2019Neill for McConville (52), Rory Grugan for McKay (61), Greg McCabe for Turbitt (65)<\/p>\n

Referee: David Coldrick (Meath)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Clifford starred as Kerry kept alive their All-Ireland title defence with a commanding 13-point victory over Armagh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-510002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510002","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=510002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}