2023 Munster Senior Football Championship Semi-Final – Kerry 0-25 Tipperary 0-5

Kerry defeated Tipperary by 0-25 to 0-5 in the Munster Senior Football Championship Semi-Final on Saturday April 22nd at Fitzgerald Stadium Killarney.

Match Highlights

In the @MunsterGAA Senior Football Championship Semi-Final @Kerry_Official enjoyed a convincing win over Tipperary at Fitzgerald Stadium. Catch the best of the action straight to your screen with #GAANOW. pic.twitter.com/szL9NDPfIO

— The GAA (@officialgaa) April 25, 2023

Kerry win by 20 points with the handbrake up as Tipp turn to Tailteann

Munster SFC semi-final: Kerry 0-25 Tipperary 0-5

Report by Tony Leen for the Irish Examiner newspaper

This was as routine as rain, Kerry making short order of Tipperary in Saturday’s Munster SFC quarter-final with the nonchalance of a Tom O’Sullivan fader splitting the posts from the left hand side. Twenty five minutes in, at the dressing room end of Fitzgerald Stadium, since you asked.

This was an unforgiving plank walk for David Power and his Tipperary side. They set up conservatively without erecting barricades but their resistance was futile as Kerry strolled to a twenty-point winning margin. The oddmakers had them 18-point favourites. Those lads won’t go short for a breakfast.

Tipp have Tailteann Cup to chew over now, priorities but they would have wanted to suck every morsel out of this brush with the All-Ireland champions. It should enhance their preparedness for the second tier championship.

What Kerry and Jack O’Connor will take from the victory is a topic we may revisit more than once in a 2023 provincial context. They got the hard yards of their Quinta do Lago training camp out of their legs, and appeared to have done so without any significant injury complications.

It took them ten minutes to raise a flag but by the break, they had a dozen points posted and a penalty missed, Michael O’Reilly going down well to his left to deny Tony Brosnan.

When the Dr Crokes corner forward posted Kerry’s eleventh point in the 35th minute, it completed the set of scoring forwards. Two of the Kerry full back line were on target too, Jason Foley landing from downtime to complement O’Sullivan’s obligatory party piece.

Tipp’s Kevin Fahey did well in the first quarter as the extra defender, and added a sweet 11th-minute point to briefly level matters. Thereafter it was mostly about keeping score and quarrying out points of note.

Dara Moynihan and Tony Brosnan did their case for added minutes in the competitive forward division no harm, and three players got valued championship minutes into their bones – Paul Geaney got 54 minutes in his first start of the season, while the returning Briain Ó Beaglaoich and Stephen O’Brien were given their first fifteen minutes or so in green and gold since last July’s All-Ireland final – even if the Gaeltacht defender didn’t see out the piece as a result of a 68th minute black card.

The Kerry keeper Shane Ryan had a pair of second half garryowens to contend with. Without the momentary flurry of excitement, he might have gone full Ethan Rafferty with the fuss restricted to the top end of the field.

Gavin White and Tadhg Morley swapped slots in the Kerry full forward line as Jack O’Connor’s men kept themselves busy. The fact that we noticed suggested many people in the crowd of around just under seven thousand (6,939) were doing likewise.

Brosnan, determined to atone for his miss from the penalty, finished with five points from play as the Kingdom shared the scoring around eleven different players. No score from play for David Clifford might have been a nugget on another day, but the linchpin looked quite content to play the passenger for the most part. His curtain calls come later.

Tom O’Sullivan continues to enhance his value as a link player – not that he is a deficient defender by any means. The thought triggered a media huddle on whether he or his Rathmore namesake is the better Kerry All-Ireland winner.

Answers on a postcard.

Post-match interview with Tipperary Manager David Power

Tipperary Senior football manager spoke to Mike McCartney following todays game. pic.twitter.com/8Y56oN8IPU

— Tipperary GAA (@TipperaryGAA) April 22, 2023

Scorers for Kerry: S O’Shea (0-7, 5 frees), T Brosnan (0-5), T O’Sullivan (0-3), D Clifford (0-2, frees), P Geaney (0-2, marks), J Foley, D O’Connor, D Moynihan, P Clifford, K Spillane, R Murphy (0-1 each).

Scorers for Tipperary: J Kennedy (0-2, 1 f, 1 45), K Fahey, C O’Shaughnessy, S Quirke (mark) (0-1 each)

KERRY: S Ryan; G O’Sullivan, J Foley, T O’Sullivan; P Murphy, T Morley, G White; D O’Connor, J Barry; D Moynihan, S O’Shea, P Clifford; T Brosnan, D Clifford, P Geaney.
Subs: B O Beaglaoich for Murphy (54); B O’Sullivan for Barry (54), K Spillane for Geaney (54); S O’Brien for P Clifford (58), R Murphy for Moynihan (58)

TIPPERARY: M O’Reilly; W Eviston, J Feehan, S O’Connell; K Fahey, C O’Shaughnessy, C Kennedy; M Russell, J Kennedy; E Moloney, T Doyle, K Ryan; S O’Brien, S Quirke, C Deely.
Subs: L Boland for Moloney (temporary, 50-53); L Boland for Fahey (55); M O’Shea for Doyle (58); M Kehoe for Eviston (63), D Leahy for O’Brien (63); C Kennedy for Quirke (65).

Referee: C Lane (Cork)

Video Interview with Kerry Selector Diarmuid Murphy

Video Interview with Kerry Footballer Tadgh Morley/strong>