Monaghan 6-17
Kerry 1-16
Denis Hurley reports from St Brendan’s Park, Birr
MONAGHAN BAGGED SIX goals against Kerry in today’s TG4 All-Ireland Ladies SFC quarter-final in St Brendan’s Park in Birr and set up a repeat of the 2013 decider against Cork at the last four stage next month.
Seven unanswered points coming up to half-time were the catalyst for Monaghan’s victory as they eased clear of Kerry in the second half.
Leading by four points at half-time, 1-10 to 0-9, Monaghan added another 2-3 before the Kingdom opened their second-half account.
Early on, Kerry had made use of the wind at their backs as Sarah Houlihan, Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh and Laura Rogers were among the points as they built a 0-5 to 0-2 lead.
The Ulster champions drew level though when Laura McEneaney profited from good play by Mohan and McAnespie to score a lovely goal in the tenth minute, but points from Lorraine Scanlon and Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh had put Kerry 0-8 to 1-3 in front again.
They were left to rue a brilliant Cathriona McKenna save to deny Ní Mhuircheartaigh, however.
Monaghan managed to necklace together a series of well-taken scores, with Caoimhe Mohan beginning the run and Ciara McAnespie, Cora Courtney (two frees), a pair from Ellen McCarron and Mohan again had them five in front.
While Sarah Houlihan’s third point from Kerry did reduce the gap slightly before half-time, Monaghan’s start to the second half ensured that they were put in a commanding position.
McCarron’s fourth from play was followed by Mohan’s third and then centre-back Sharon Courtney got forward well, a wonderful swivel giving her space before a super low finish to the corner.
Ciara McAnespie put ten points between the teams before Therese Scott made Kerry’s task harder with the third Monaghan goal.
Houlihan, sub Anna Galvin and Rogers had three Kerry points in response but, after McCarron and Mohan pointed for Monaghan, the Munster runners-up lost midfielder Bernie Breen to a red card.
Wing-back Denise Hallissey did provide a glimmer of hope when her speculative effort crept in to reduce the deficit to eight points with as many minutes left while Ní Mhuircheartaigh went close, but Monaghan closed out the game well.
Midfielder Eimear McAnespie scored a late goal after Cora Courtney’s brilliant pass and her sister Ciara added a fine individual effort before setting up Rosemary Courtney for a sixth green flag.
By the end, they were 16-point winners, setting up the tie with Cork on 3 September.
Scorers for Monaghan: E McCarron, C Mohan 0-5 each, C McAnespie 1-3, C Courtney 0-4f, L McEneaney, S Courtney, T Scott, E McAnespie, R Courtney 1-0 each.
Scorers for Kerry: L Ní Mhuircheartaigh 0-6 (0-3f), S Houlihan 0-4 (0-3f), D Hallissey 1-0, L Rogers, L Scanlon, A Galvin 0-2 each.
Monaghan
C McKenna; R McKenna, J Fitzpatrick, L Ward; A McAnespie, S Courtney, G McNally; C Courtney, E McAnespie; L McEneaney, E McCarron, T Scott; C McAnespie, C Mohan, R Courtney.
Subs: N Callan for Ward (37), L Jones for Mohan (51), M Atkinson for L McEneaney (57).
Kerry
E Murphy; A O’Connell, A Desmond, C Murphy; D Hallissey, C Kelly, E Lynch; B Breen, E Sherwood; K O’Sullivan, L Scanlon, J Lynch; S Houlihan, L Ní Mhuircheartaigh, L Rogers.
Subs: A Leonard for E Lynch, A Galvin for J Lynch (36), A Brosnan for Sherwood (49), P Dennehy for Rogers (50), M O’Connell for Houlihan (54).
Referee: J Niland (Sligo).
The42 is on Snapchat! Tap the button below on your phone to add!
Here’s an idea. Fire Mike Catt. I still don’t know why he was hired. He was the backs coach for an England that were always nearly there’s and then got dumped out of their own World Cup in the pool stages. Then was attack coach for Italy. That is not a career path that inspired any confidence. And we’ve seen Ireland regress while he’s been in the setup. At least Andy Farrell has a decent CV with The Lions and Ireland under Joe Schmidt. But really, why is Catt in the setup?
@Pete Slattery ✏️: Firing Catt would be a sacrificial lamb and only papering over the cracks. The entire management team needs to go (with the exception of O’Connell) as the systemic problem are so inset an entire reboot is required. I have said on this forum before that someone like Scottie Robertson would be ripe for picking from super rugby and his with previous relationship with ROG would be a very attractive and viable coaching ticket.
@Mike Faherty: scot robertson is set to be the next AllBlacks coach. He isnt going to leave to coach ireland. The irish team is really solid on everything other than attack. It is well worth trying a new attack coach than going through the effort of replacing everyone.
@Rudiger McMonihan: He was snubbed in favour of Ian Foster in 2019. Foster only got a 2 year contract on the assumption that Gats would get job post Lions. With Super rugby even suffering more than the NH the IRFU could test his resolve, ala Dingo Deans
So the coach is blaming his players now for not implementing his non existent game plan.
The scrum and line out has improved since Paul O’Connell has arrived which is great to see but that’s the only positive.
Otherwise it’s depressing to see a team of players kicking the ball away at every opportunity particularly players like Lowe who runs everything playing for Leinster.
Some of the selections have been baffling too, JGP and Burns are good club players but a long way from international standard. What do Carthy and Cooney have to do to get picked?
Also leaving Craig Casey on the bench for 80 minutes is frankly insulting to the young lad.
I expect him to pick the usual players for next week and Ireland to scrape a win Italy.
@Batster: I absolutely hate seeing a player sitting on the bench for 80 mins in a game we’re chasing from early on. It is appalling management. If you’re not going to trust a player to come off the bench in a losing situation, then don’t have him in the squad in the first place. I’m nowhere near calling for Farrell’s head yet but that dreadful management.
Since 1995 Italy have won 4 from 32, the last time was 2013 and before that was 1997. Obviously you have respect for teams but if you’re afraid of Italy you are in trouble with everyone else as we are proving thus far. Come on IRFU lets get it done instead of the inevitable long ‘contractually obliged’ goodbye.
Well one simple starting point that would help -if Johnny is starting- is he either kicks or passes but run/pass, run/loop/receive/pass, please no! ….its like a kink in your garden hose you only get a trickle.
@Michael Murray: Yeah, it’s old hat, including his dummies of the ball.
When we played France it looked like there were 3-4 players ready to pounce on the Irish player with the ball. However, when the Irish player hit the ground 2 retreated to form a defence and the Irish piled on top of the those remaining. And the game slooowed down… What logic?
Conversely, the French were continuously offloading (when falling, tackled or hitting the ground) to players running onto the ball which made it difficult for the Irish to defend the fast ball. Entertaining attacking stuff.
Anyone else get the feeling that farrell reads too much into the media ??? A lot of his reasoning seems based around selection not game plan. I didn’t like the style we played with schmidt but at least it was something and for a long time very effective. When I see this irish team I don’t know what the plan is (other than kicking the ball 80/90 percent of the time). We worked our asses off in two games putting in huge physical effort. There is a lot of passion but zero creativity… that’s what I expect from a Georgia at this level not from us ! The provinces play much better rugby (especially connacht!!!) Than the national team, this setup bar o connell has brought nothing new. Time to move on