A fine group of players, coaches and supporters made the long trip to Kenmare on Saturday morning for the under-12 Kerry plate semi-final.

In an exciting incident-packed encounter Lions cruelly lost by a single point. The Lions boys were ahead early on but a series of very dubious foul calls on star-player Jack Coyne broke their momentum and Kenmare turned the tables to run up a 10 point lead.

Lions fought back bravely with a scoring charge in the last quarter led by Jack Coyne and Matt Sutton but fell just short. However Jason Barry’s boys bounced back on Sunday with a fine 13-point win over St Brendans to confirm first place in Kerry league division 2A and qualify for the league play-off stages.

Matt Sutton and Jack Coyne were outstanding at point and inside forward Aaron McNamara had his best game of the season. Colm Moran was also hugely impressive and is a rapidly improving player. Niall Sweeney, Cameron Di Benedetto, Jazz Pendejito, Shane Flanagan and Mark Shiels had strong games and Barry Kelleher, Neville O’Sullivan, Dylan Gleeson, Jack McKeown, Rory McNamara and Christian Ryan put in good shifts for their team.