Na Piarsaigh footballers defeated in Munster intermediate club final with Kerry's Rathmore

NA Piarsaigh's intermediate footballers' brave challenge fell short against red hot favourites Rathmore in today's Munster club final in Mallow.

The Munster club IFC final finished Rathmore 1-17, Na Piarsaigh 0-10.

That advantage was most striking before the break when five frees from Christy Spiers and one from Kerry goalie Shane Ryan moved them into a five point lead before Na Piarsaigh finally got to terms with their finishing coming up to the break.

The gap could have all but disappeared within minutes of the restart as the Caherdavin club threw everything into attack but the missed goal chance took the sting out of the fightback and gave Rathmore enough breathing space to recover their composure and then regain control of the play when their goal bounced them into a lead they were unlikely to concede.

After Dylan Cronin had Na Piarsaigh off the mark inside a minute, three fouls were punished by Spiers and another by Ryan before Kieran Daly brought the gap back to two. However, Rathmore's more direct running forward allowed Mark Ryan, Spiers's free and John Moynihan mover them further in front before Daly struck again for the Northsiders.

That was met by another Spiers free but the Kingdom kingpins then breathed a sigh of relief as Cathal McMullan, after being fed by Reuben McCarthy, was denied by Andrew Moynihan deflecteng over on the goal line before Eoghan Sherlock stopped Fionn Holohan goaling at the end of a move from the resulting kickout. Shane Ryan then sent over the '45' to which Spiers added his sixth free to leave the Kerrymen leading 0-10 to 0-4 at the break.

After Daly sent over a '45', he colllected off the kickout being turned over only to see his piledriver crash off the crossbar but he got some consolation from a follow-up point. Speirs replied with a free bu the Limerick champions' rally continued with Cronin converting a free but they missed a few chances of drawing closer before Spiers struck back from play and from a free.

The game changed when James Darmody found Darragh Rahilly to tap to the net and Spiers's free followed up to move the gap from four to ten in just seven minutes and it could have been more had Cathal Ryan's goal not been pulled back for a square ball. After Shane Ryan's point as the subs piled on, Daly hit back from play and Cronin from a free before Spiers answered with a free and with the games final score in reply to James Daly's free.

SCORERS: RATHMORE: Christy Spiers 0-12 (10 frees), Shane Ryan 0-3 (1 free, 1 '45'), Darragh Rahilly 1-0, Mark Ryan, John Moynihan 0-1 each. NA PIARSAIGH: Kieran Daly 0-5 (1 '45'), Dylan Cronin 0-3 (2 frees), Cathal McMullan, James Daly (free) 0-1 each.

RATHMORE: Kenneth O'Keeffe; James O'Sullivan, Andrew Moynihan, Dan Murphy; Alan Dineen, Darragh Rahilly, Fionn Holohan; Mark Ryan, Cathal Ryan; Brendan O'Keeffe, Christy Spiers, Brian Friel; John Moynihan, James Dermody, Shane Ryan. Subs: Mark Breen for Darragh Rahilly (43mins), Ben O'Connor for Fionn Holohan (52mins), Jimmy O'Mahony for Dan Murphy (53mins), Anthony Darmody for James Darmody (55mins), Aidan O'Mahony for Alan Dineen (55mins).

NA PIARSAIGH: Eoghan Sherlock; Diarmuid Ryan, Shane Walsh, Jack Barry; Cathal McMullan, Reuben McCarthy, Evan O'Brien; Gordon Brown, Ruaidhrí O'Connell; Kevin Nolan, Dylan Cronin, Dean McLoughlin; Kieran Daly, Evan Sweeney, Evan Egan. Subs: Fionn Ó Tiarnaigh for Cathal McMullan (40mins), James Daly for Kevin Nolan (43mins), Ronan Holohan for Evan O'Brien (46mins), Eoin McNulty for Shane Walsh (50mins), Tom McKeown for Evan Egan (53mins).

REFEREE: Chris Maguire (Clare).