First Division

Mounthawk Park
23 Feb 2024

A night of drama in Tralee saw play suspended for half an hour in the first half, when the pitch was subjected to a brief but intense blizzard of hail followed by lightning and thunder.

When play resumed, the home side suffered the loss of Nathan Gleeson to a second caution but nevertheless went into the break ahead, courtesy of a first half time added strike by Kevin Williams.

Stubborn Kerry defending meant Bray had to wait until the final twenty minutes before equalising, but after substitute Peter Grogan rose highest to Shane Griffin's flag kick, Samuel Aladesanusi returned the favour at the Bray back post two miniutes later.

A second Wanderers equaliser came within sixty seconds from Darren Craven, who fired home a loose ball, and Cristian Magerusan secured victory by heading a Griffin free to Antonio Tuta's net.

Kerry seemed to have the game in their hands in the opening stages, Jimmy Corcoran in action to block Daniel Okwute and Sean McGrath, with Okwute shooting wide a iittle earlier. But ten minutes in, just after Paul Murphy went close for Bray with a volley from a corner, the skies opened with a torrential hailstorm, and just before the quarter hour Referee Mark Moynihan called both sides off the pitch.

Just under ten minutes after that, as Tuta got ready to resume the match with a goal kick, an enormous flash of lightning lit up the sky to the south of the stadium, and within a minute or so a second sheet illuminated the western sky. The re-start was duly delayed again, and it was after half past eight before play continued.

Kerry’s early momentum may have been dissipated by the double delay, but the visitors, too, were put off, and goal chances were scarce at either end. The Kingdom’s chances were not improved when Gleeson received two cautions within a ten-minute spell, both of which might have been regarded as harsh, and left his side a man down.

What seems to be a fairly frequent sending-off response these days saw Kerry defender Williams fire them ahead in time added with a lovely swerving dipping shot under the Bray crossbar.

In the opening passages of the second half, Bray had no response to the home side’s defensive approach, but the introduction of Grogan and Magerusan on the hour would prove critical.

Grogan provided the breakthrough, levelling matters from a Shane Griffin delivery with twenty minutes left, and the tempo rose exponentially with a second defender, Kerry’s Aladesanusi, rising to head home a Sean O’Connell flag-kick at the back post two minutes later. 

The next twist of the knife, however, came from Craven when Bray sub Freddie Turley’s hanging cross from the right in the 73rd minute was fumbled by Tuta under pressure from Grogan. Kieran Cruise’s footwork fed Craven who side-footed expertly into the top right hand corner from about 15 metres.

Bray finally went into the lead just over a minute later when Shane Griffin floated a ball into the area which was headed home by Magerusan.

Those four goals in five minutes proved the height of the affair, though Kerry turned to attacking substitutions to try to salvage the tie, but strikers Victor Udeze and Cian Brosnan could not find a way through the Wanderers’ defence in the time remaining.

Bray Wanderers: 1 James Corcoran; 5 Cole Omorehiomwan, 4 Kilian Cantwell (c) , 16 Paul Murphy; 2 Max Murphy, 7 Darren Craven , 8 Harry Groome, 31 Kieran Cruise; 6 Guillermo Almirall, 23 Shane Griffin; 11 Callum Thompson
Subs: 9 Cristian Magerusan (for Groome 60) , 10 Ben Feeney, 12 Jamie Duggan, 14 Freddie Turley (for Omorehiomwan 34 inj), 15 Zach Nolan (for Almirall 60), 17 Thomas Morgan, 18 Peter Grogan (for Murphy 60) , 20 Alain Kizenga (for Cruise 870, 35 Benjamin Clark (gk)
Kerry: 1 Antonio Tuta; 15 Kevin Williams , 18 Samuel Aladesanusi , 5 Andrew Spain (c), 3 Sean O'Connell; 14 Steven Healy , 21 Daire McCarthy, 11 Daniel Okwuy Okwute, 7 Sean McGrath, 13 Nathan Gleeson ; 9 Ryan Kelliher
Subs: 2 Robert Vasiu, 4 Jack Kavanagh, 6 Ethan Kos (for Okwute H/T), 8 Ronan Teahan, 12 Kennedy Amechi (for O'Connell 79), 17 Cian Brosnan (for McGrath 79), 22 Victor Udeze (for Kelliher 68), 27 Ferdia O'Brien, 30 Aaron O'Sullivan (gk)
Referee: Mark Moynihan