Courtesy of The Irish Emigrant...
Armagh Notre Dame 2-4 v Kerry 3-13

With the season currently at the halfway stage and the league beginning to take shape, two teams under threat of being left behind faced each other hoping to make a positive step in their push for places in this year’s semi finals. Both Armagh and Kerry had been neck and neck in the table recently until Kerry’s fine win over high flying St. Christophers keeping them in contention for a run at the Senior Championship this magnified the importance of taking a win from the game. While Kerry have hit form, Notre Dame were less impressive in their last game and were looking to recreate the form which led them to victory over Cork in their only win this season.
After conceding six goals in their last game, Armagh were anxious to keep things tighter in this fixture and were looking equally prolific with a three pointer from Neil Jordan after the first attack. Just like the week before, the early lead was short lived as a loose ball into the box was not dealt with and Kerry brought back the deficit with their first goal of the game. Agian, the Armagh net was under siege and Kerry found their third from the penalty spot after a long run from Kiely was halted illegally and the forward dispatched a shot calmly past the goalkeeper.
Over the course of the first half both sides shared equal possession and Armagh did create more chance for scores but were struggling to take them under pressure from the Kingdom defense while the men of Kerry were far more accurate, hitting six in the first half, mostly from play and this made the half time score 2-6 to 1-3.
The supreme fitness of a strong Kerry side began to shine threw as they found Armagh’s Achilles heel in that department. The Orchard County ran out of steam and succumbed to another goal midway through the second half when Crofy got on the end of a good move to run through and chip a delightful lob over the stranded goalkeeper. Armagh did find the net for their second but too little too late as Kerry’s ability to convert possession into scores told with a final scoreline of 3-13 to 2-4 to move the Munster side further up the table.


Armagh ND: C. Molloy, A. Doyle, N. Lennon, , D. Burke, F. Meehan, B. Boylan, G. Gilsenan, N. Jordon, F. McClelland, M. Tiffney, D. Maguire, D. Gilsenan.
Subs: M. Graham, D. Fields, A. McLoughlin, P. McArdle, S. McCorry, C. Moore, N. Kelly, S. Murphy, B. O’Donnell
Kerry: J. Molloy, A Fenton, C O'Sullivan, F O'Sullivan, B Lombard, M. Godley, J. Moroney, G O'Keeffe, R. Crofit, S. Kiely, L. Shortan, B. Kennedy, R. O’Neill
Subs: T. Dennehy, I.Byrne, R O'Dwyer

Seniors ...

May 24th.. Wolfe Tones
June 7th... Cork
June 21st - 1:15PM .. Shannon Blues
June 27th - (Sat) 4:15PM .. St Christophers
July 11th - (Sat) 5:30PM ... Donegal
July 26th - 1:15PM ... A.N.D
Aug 2nd - 2:30PM ... Galway
Aug 16th - 1:15PM .. Macs

Juniors...
June 13th (Sat) - 5:30PM ... Cork
June 28th - 1:45 .... Celtics
July 15th (Wed) - 5:45PM ... Connemara Gaels
July 25th (Sat) - 5:30PM ... Donegal
August 5th (Wed) - 6:00PM .... A. MacAnespies

LOCKER ROOM: Kerry's game against Galway was the best of the season and left us grasping for superlatives, writes Tom Humphries

LET US now praise famous men. Kerry - though they will writhe and flinch in the spotlight, it being this side of September - have been the best quality and the best story of this generally woebegone football championship.

Saturday's game with Galway, played in a monsoon under a charcoal sky, was the best of the season so far and we came away in our kayaks gasping at the longevity of Kerry.

It's one thing for Cork and Kilkenny to have had a modern rivalry stretching back to that 1999 final. Hurling is still a less physically demanding game and the number of times a year when you face a genuine threat to your standing and physical wellbeing is limited.

Kerry, on Saturday, were qualifying for their ninth All-Ireland semi-final in succession. Since the inception of the quarter finals they have played at that stage eight times and won each time. Very few handy options either - Dublin 2001 and 2004, Galway 2002 and 2008, Armagh, Monaghan and, well, Mayo and Roscommon.

Their modern pre-eminence includes All-Ireland final appearances in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and the draining celebrations following four of those finals.

If you are Darragh Ó Sé you can throw in the win in 1997 as well. They are eternal.

In 2001 Páidí Ó Sé and Jack O'Connor and the boys sat with their heads in their hands as Meath dismantled them. They saw Meath into recession. And Galway too. They went mano-a-mano in the puke-football era, swallowing with difficulty the hubris of counties winning a first or second All-Ireland at their expense. Learned to deal with them and saw them off the premises.

They must have noticed that as they came out to deal with Galway yesterday there were still a lot of men in orange shirts sitting in the stands with their tails between their legs.

They never cease to astonish you. How many half-time cups of tea have been drunk in Croke Park by people shaking their heads and noting gravely that Darragh Ó Sé is "gone"? And there he was again on Saturday in the closing stages driving Kerry on and on through the rain.

War horse, the term most popularly used to describe Darragh, doesn't do him justice. Noah's Ark didn't carry enough varieties of beast from which to draw metaphorical comparisons.

What appeals about Kerry is the county's stoical resistance to the ravages of hype. Tommy Walsh, for instance, has been slipped into the team with much head shaking and many yerras and half-apologetic promises that he will be ready in a year or two.

Lawdee! If he were a Dub he would be a folk hero already, almost drowning in the hysteria.

And on Saturday they casually slipped Daniel Bohane into the edge of the square in the second half when the going was tough and Galway were hungry.

Kingdom watchers will know that Bohane plays just about anywhere for Austin Stacks, a versatility that can be a curse when trying to break through at county level.

He had the misfortune last year to break a finger in the warm-up of his National League debut against Cavan in Breffni Park, and then when he got going again two months later he was dropped in at centre back, a decision which was the final straw to Eamon Fitzmaurice, who promptly resigned his bench-warming residency.

Bohane was overshadowed and generally forgotten about.

Then on Saturday he comes in when Kerry are struggling following the arrival of Joe Bergin and he cleans up. He just takes over the defence like he is the new sheriff of Dodge City and every miscreant has three minutes to leave town or face the consequences.

Kerry keep on winning virtually as a by-product of their search for excellence and football perfection. Should they grasp the three-in-a-row which hangs for them from the branches right now talk will turn to the four-in-a-row.

Only in Kerry would the Gooch, a wonder of the world if ever th