Kerry progress in dour quarter-final with Derry

Kerry are into the All-Ireland quarter-finals and Derry are out of their misery.

That just about sums up the fall-out from a woefully poor All-Ireland quarter-final that will make for a quick post-mortem in the Kingdom ahead of a semi-final against Armagh in a fortnight, and a somewhat longer period of introspection in Derry.

It took Kerry the bones of an hour to fully break free of the clutches of a Derry team that tried in vain to rescue an ailing Championship for them, but that finally came to a limp end for the league champions against the team that knocked them out last year too.

A poor first half was the sides reach the interval at 0-06 apiece, and all things considered Derry would have been the happier with that.

After all, the fear was that their poor form and playing their third game in 14 days might have caught up with them quicker than that against a fresher Kerry side.

However, Kerry brought no great vim and vigour to the last of the quarter-finals, and the Kerry and Derry supporters in the 47,406 crowd had little to get excited about for much of the first half.

David Clifford opened the scoring for Kerry in the second minute and further points from Tony Brosnan and Clifford from a mark, put Kerry ahead, 0-03 to 0-02, after 11 minutes.

Derry needed some excellent goalmouth defending to deny Gavin White and then Tadhg Morley a goal around the quarter-hour mark, and then Shane McGuigan fired over two great Derry scores to put his side 0-04 to 0-03 ahead.

In the second quarter Kerry points from Brian Ó Beaglaioch, Joe O'Connor and Paul Geaney, with Brendan Rogers and McGuigan for Derry leaving it 0-06 apiece at the break.

McGuigan won and converted a free early in the second half to put Derry back in front in what was