East Kerry and St. Kierans played out one of the finest games of this year's Kerry Senior football championship, with favourites East Kerry eventually overcoming Kierans by just two points in the quarter-final clash.
While St. Kierans may have been on the losing end of a battle where a few calls went 'very badly' against them, man of the match Paul Walsh delivered a brilliant interview paying tribute to the man in the middle.
Walsh originally shot to stardom when he won the 2018 Minor Footballer of the Year award, before a now-famous trip to Brazil saw him fly to RIO in the hopes of meeting Ronaldinho, with Walsh eventually getting a picture with Ronaldinho and a Kerry jersey in the Brazilian footballer's house.
Yerra he’s not bad 😜#FootballLegend Could he start against Tyrone🤔?💚💛 https://t.co/JCUsLKif4V
— Kerry GAA (@Kerry_Official) August 19, 2021
East Kerry started off the stronger of the two sides, with their twentieth-minute goal and volley of points giving them an eight-point lead at the end of the first third. However, a strong comeback driven by Paul Walsh saw St. Kierans add a goal and three points to their tally before the break, leaving the affair tied at 1-06 to 1-06 with a half to play.
When play resumed it was East Kerry who struck first to take the lead - a lead they didn't let go of until the referee blew his whistle to signal full-time. Despite Kierans keeping East Kerry within touching distance throughout, they failed to take control of the game in the second half, with even a resurgence in the dying moments proving futile in breaking down East Kerry's defence.
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Paul Walsh delivers commendable post-match interview
While Kierans may have come out on the wrong side of yesterday's tense affair, it was a far cry from last year's championship clash between the sides when East Kerry pummelled Kierans 4-19 (31) to 0-12. Speaking to Clubber TV after yesterday's clash, Paul Walsh revealed that last year's 'embarrassing' defeat had been weighing heavily on the minds of his teammates heading into Sunday's game.
Despite both Walsh himself and the Clubber TV punditry crew agreeing that Kierans had plenty of reasons to be aggrieved about referring calls in the game, the man of the match can only be commended for his emphatic defence of the matchday officials.
Yeah its tough coming over and doing an interview when you're on the losing side, but this time twelve months ago leaving the dressing room after playing East Kerry we were very very embarrassed, you know, we didn't put up a good showing for ourselves, for the club or for our management team even.
So that was the main talking point coming into this game because last year everyone was wishing coming out that dressing room door just to get a second chance at this. We got a second chance today and even though the result didn't go our way we proved that we played a lot better and we can hold our head leaving today.
I do think we had a few calls go very badly against us but you know it's not an easy gig being there in the middle of the pitch. I'm not going to come out giving stink about referees, there's no point in doing that. It's tough, very very tough, hardest job to do in my opinion, so we're just gonna leave that behind us and focus on the positives and go again for next year.
The win means East Kerry now march on to the final four, where they'll meet Dingle in what should be another brilliant fixture in the Kerry Senior Football Championship.
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