East Kerry 2-10
Dingle 1-13

Paul Brennan reports from Austin Stack Park

A 66TH MINUTE point — two minutes after the signaled four minutes of additional time — from Kerry defender Tom O’Sullivan rescued a dramatic draw for Dingle against a fancied East Kerry team in the first of the Kerry SFC semi-finals in Tralee this afternoon.

When the teams met in Round 2A of the Championship a few weeks ago, there were 17 points between them at the end, in East Kerry’s favour, but Dingle will probably feel they left this one behind them having dominated and led for much of the match.

The second half was played with 14 players against 14 after Dingle’s Paul Devane was red carded on 30 minutes and then Shane McSweeney followed him for a double yellow dismissal right on the half-time whistle.

Dingle led 0-8 to 0-4 at the interval and were good value for their lead, even though David Clifford had dragged his 16th minute penalty wide for East Kerry, when they trailed 0-3 to 0-5 after the first quarter.

Dingle were still leading by three, 0-10 to 0-7, when Paul Geaney played an ingenious pass to Tom O’Sullivan for a simple goal to put the club side six ahead, but East Kerry responded immediately with Clifford finishing a super counter-attack to the net.

Six minutes later, another East Kerry counter-move ended with Clifford rolling in his second goal, and with the momentum shifting to the divisional team, the favourites looked more likely to win.

Jack Sherwood’s fisted point in the 60th minute looked like it might be good enough to get East Kerry into a first county final since 1999, but then O’Sullivan spirited upfield to hammer over the equaliser for a dramatic end to a spiky game.

Scorers for Dingle: Paul Geaney 0-6 (5f), Tom O’Sullivan 1-1, Tomas Sheehy 0-2, Michael Geaney 0-2, Michael Flannery 0-1, Barry O’Sullivan 0-1.

Scorers for East Kerry: David Clifford 2-4 (0-1f), Dara Roche 0-2 (1f), Jack Sherwood 0-1, Philip Casey 0-1, Paudie Clifford 0-1 ’45′, Liam Kearney 0-1.

Dingle

1. Gavin Curran

2. Michael Flannery
3. Tom Leo O’Sullivan
4. Padraig O’Connor

5. Michael Begley
6. Tom O’Sullivan
7. Aidan O’Connor

8. Billy O’Connor
9. Barry O’Sullivan

10. Brian O’Connor
11. Michael Geaney
12. Paul Devane

13. Tomas Sheehy
14. Paul Geaney
15. Matthew Flaherty

Subs

28. Eoin Murphy for A O’Connor (55)
22. Niall Geaney for M Flannery (64)

East Kerry

1. Brendan Kealy

2. Darren Brosnan
3. Dan O’Donoghue
4. Shane Courtney

5. Sean O’Leary
6. Jack Sherwood
7. Philip Casey

8. Shane McSweeney
9. Kevin O’Gorman

10. Darragh Moynihan
11. Paudie Clifford
12. Kevin McCarthy

13. Evan Cronin
14. David Clifford
15. Darragh Roche

Subs

21. Liam Kearney for D Brosnan (35)
20. Chris O’Donoghue for S Courtney (46)
24. Ronan Buckley for K McCarthy (46)
17. Brian O’Donoghue for E Cronin (55)
26. Michael O’Donoghue for K O’Gorman (b/c, 61)
25. Jeff O’Donoghue for D Moynihan (65)

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Referee: Sean Joy (Laune Rangers)

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