Killarney Red got their season underway by hosting Listowel at Aghadoe in brilliant sunshine on a glorious September afternoon.

The team - primarily consisting of last season's U12 group plus a number of new starters - dominated territory and possession in the early exchanges but Listowel resisted and kept Killarney busy defensively too.

Killarney broke the deadlock when wing John Sexton read Listowel's intentions as they sought to go wide in their own half - he intercepted and raced under the posts.  Luke Mccan added a straightforward conversion. 

 Killarney had other chances to extend their lead but either over-carried close to the line or failed to support line breaks. Listowel defended well and forced Killarney into a loss of composure when clearer thinking would have used the weapons out wide.  This proved costly when a Listowel break caught Killarney defending too narrowly and they scored in the corner.  An impressive attempt at the difficult conversion just failed - hitting the near post.  Half time arrived with  Killarney 2 points to the good leading 7 - 5.

Listowel kicked off the second half and a great catch put Killarney on the front foot.  Similar to the first half, Killarney dominated territory and kept Listowel pinned in their own half. Excellent tackling smothered Listowel's attempts to attack from deep.  The Red team twice came close to scores inspired by first-half try scorer John Sexton, and Jack Gabbett was held short. 

The dam broke when Sexton managed to elude several tackles and go over in the corner.  The narrow angle meant the try went unconverted.    Killarney now lead by 12 - 5. Despite Killarney having had the better of the game - Listowel were not out of it by any means and it took excellent tacking to keep them from adding to their total.  

The game was put to bed when a sustained Killarney attack led to penalty under the posts.  With only 5 minutes left, kicker Luke Mccan opted to kick.  His successful attempt stretched the lead to 10 with time running out.  Killarney had the final word when they moved the ball wide to wing Oisín Fleming - who had kept Listowel's defence busy with his elusive running. This time he was able to elude a tiring defence and race away to score under the posts.  A simple conversion with time elapsed completed the scoring.

Thanks to Listowel for a very sporting game - all the more impressive since they did not field a U14 team last season.

Picking out individuals for praise is always invidious but credit must go to Jack and Arthur Gabbett for their ball carrying and tackling, centre Cathal Sugrue who led the defensive effort and made a number of line breaks, and captain and no8 Shane Morrissey .  We must also acknowledge the efforts of Killian Collins, Eoin Murphy, and Ronan Fahy whose first competitive game this was.   We also wish a speedy recovery to Oisin Scully who had to leave the field early in the first half with a foot injury.