It was a Saturday at the end of January, the weather wasn’t the best and the pitch was slippery after weeks of rain. It could only mean one thing. It was the first round of the Kerry Cup. Our opponents were Mastergeeha B who play in the division below us so we were favourites. Our first half was not an exceptional one for us and though we dominated we didn’t threaten like we might have. We had most of the play but through of overplaying the ball, dribbling unnecessarily and our opponents well drilled defensive formation, we didn’t work their keeper all that often. We did score after 20 minutes through Sean Higgins and this did settle the nerves at least and we improved from here. When Sean and PJ went wide we were at our best but when we forced it through the middle we had difficulties in the traffic. Our opponents defending was of a high order throughout and they never gave up. We only breached their defence once when a super piece of interplay started with Christopher found PJ on the wing. He found Thomas at the edge of their box who turned on it in one move and slid the ball to an onrushing Eoghan Mac who cut through only to be thwarted by the excellent Geeha keeper. Cormac O’Shea engineered a shooting opportunity from the edge of the box but it was tipped over at the last second. Thomas shot narrowly into the sidenetting after some clever footwork and we were denied at times by some good defending but just on half time PJ stole in with a well timed run to score from a Sean Higgins cross.One of the big improvements in our play today was the offensive running of our 2 full backs Sean Donnellan and Christopher Murphy and from one of these runs after 5 minutes into the second half Christopher scored to finish the game as a contest after some good work by Antoin Stanton and Cormac O’Shea around the middle. We introduced Oisin O Brien,Ciaran Carmody and Cormac O Brien at this stage and brought Henry Downing out of goals for the last 20 minutes. Oisin had an immediate impact and scored 2 within 10 minutes despite carrying an injury. Henry showed he still has those fancy touches and set up a lot of play. Cormac and Ciaran were their usual selves and impressed when they came on for the injured Thomas and Sean. We scored one more near the end through PJ after another strong run from the left. Well done also to Bobby and Dara at centre back who repulsed everything that was thrown at them. Finally well played to Mastergeeha who never gave up and defended well.