Cork 3-17 Kerry 2-9
Defensive alignments went out the window in Páirc Uí Rinn this afternoon, as Cork recorded another big Allianz Football League win over Munster rivals Kerry.
Last year's thrashing in Tralee didn't hold back Kerry in the long run and manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice will certainly hope that his team show more urgency in the months ahead but his Cork counterpart Brian Cuthbert will be pleased to exorcise some of the worst memories from last year's championship reverse against the All-Ireland champions.
The irony was that when the goals were flying in, in the first half, Kerry managed to stay in touch by raiding with long ball directed in at captain Kieran Donaghy. But after half-time when the heavy artillery gave way to sniper fire Cork did even better, and none more so than the veteran Donnacha O'Connor, who came on as a replacement and helped himself to four points.
The first half erupted with three goals in the first 10 minutes, two for Cork from Colm O'Neill and John O'Rourke and one in reply when Donaghy harassed Ken O'Halloran into conceding under pressure from a high ball from Anthony Maher.
O'Rourke's second goal in the 17th minute stretched the margin to eight but Kerry responded with a purple patch, as David Moran and Maher took over at centrefield and won three kick-outs in a row between the 23rd and 25th minutes, leading to 1-2.
Replacement Tommy Walsh got the second goal after an assist from Donaghy. There were four in it at half-time, 3-7 to 2-6.
Afterwards it was one-way traffic. Kerry managed only three points in the entire period while Cork kicked 10.
Although it wasn't a bad tempered match there were a couple of outbreaks of brawling and Paul Murphy received a black card in the 12th minute.
CORK: K O'Halloran; J Loughrey, S O'Donoghue, Tom Clancy; Tomás Clancy, M Shields, J O'Sullivan; E Cadogan, F Goold; K O'Driscoll (0-3), M Collins, C O'Driscoll (0-1); J O'Rourke (2-0), C O'Neill (1-6, five pts frees), B Hurley (0-2).
Subs: D O'Connor (0-4) for O'Rourke (49 mins), C Dorman (0-1) for Tomás Clancy (52 mins), P Kerrigan for K O'Driscoll (57 mins), J Hayes for O'Neill (62 mins), D Goulding for Hurley (62 mins), N Galvin for Tom Clancy (65 mins).
KERRY: B Kealy; F Fitzgerald, M Griffin, P Kilkenny; J Lyne, J Sherwood, P Murphy; A Maher, D Moran; M Geaney, B Sheehan, J Buckley; S O'Brien (0-1), K Donaghy (capt; 1-0), BJ Keane (0-5, two frees).
Subs: K Young for Murphy (black card, 12 mins), T Walsh (1-0) for Sheehan, P Crowley (0-1) for Sherwood (both 20 mins), A Fitzgerald (0-2) for Maher (half-time), S Enright for F Fitzgerald (41 mins), P O'Donoghue for Moran (63 mins).
Referee: Anthony Nolan (Wicklow).
