Listowel Celtic 2 Samphires 3 – We played away to Listowel last Friday in the quarter final of the Kerry Cup. It was a smashing day full of sunshine but with a breeze blowing down the field which as always in Listowel was in pristine condition. We had only 11 players available because of injuries. We were quite solid defensively throughout but the bigger Listowel team caused us a few anxious moments at times. We took the lead when a low cross from a free by Bobby O Regan caught them off guard and quick as you like Cormac O Brien swivelled to score at the near post. Our opponents took the game to us then but we countered effectively and Christopher Murphy and Sean Higgins added to our lead.Both had great games for us and ran their legs off for the cause. We could have finished the game as a contest in this half but somehow missed a couple of gilt edged chances. We did have warnings of what Listowel were able to do as they had a number of chances off target including hitting the post. 2nd Half – Listowel kept up the pressure(including hitting the post for a second time) but we were fairly comfortable with Thomas Lenihan and Bobby O Regan having fine games in the middle of the park. At the back, Sean Donnellan, Antoin Stanton ,David Lenihan and Cormac O Brien had good games bolstered by Dara O’Connor at times when the pressure came on. As the half wore on we grew in confidence, maybe committed too many players to attack and were caught by a sucker punch from Listowel who in the 55th minute dispossessed us deep in their own half, and 2 passes and 10 seconds later they had scored a quality goal. They took great confidence from this and like our last game here last season we had to face 20 minutes of pressure. Our keeper, Brian O’Regan was commanding and on one occasion he made an exceptional acrobatic save to keep them out. Up front Ciaran Carmody gave a top class display of how keep the ball under pressure and recycle it to keep us moving forward. We conceded again in the 3rd minute of injury time but the game was over leaving us 3-2 winners. Well done to all the lads again.