Past encounters
had kept Annacurra in the game. Pat O’Toole had two Blessington points and Kevin Barry shot two for Annacurra with the first coming from a 25th minute free.
John Horan and Sean O’Neill were described as having ‘fine outings’ while the Blessington half back line of Glen Walsh, Martin Shannon and Martin Hennessy were curbing the threat of Liam O’Loughlin and Christy O’Brien in the Annacurra inside line where Shay Sargent was described as a ‘tower of strength’.
In the 18th minute of the second half John Finnegan produced a fine save from a Kevin Barry shot while Frankie Newsome was also frustrated with a goal attempt.
Blessington kicked on again and kicked the last five points to seal their final place with Pat O’Toole impressing from frees and play.
Dunlavin would pip them in the final two weeks later. on any given day can beat the other - look at Annacurra drawing with Rathnew last year. It’s all on the day.”
O’Brien knows how important the opening fixture could be and they don’t come much tougher than Baltinglass.
To be the best, you have to beat the best and Pat’s really could lay down a marker with victory on opening day.
“We’re looking forward to it. Baltinglass in the first match is not going to be easy and whoever loses that game is under pressure straight away. It’d be good to win the first one and get off to a good start.”
JOHN HYNES – ANNACURRA
John Hynes does not want to be at the bottom of pile when all is said and done.
Annacurra’s squad have suffered in recent years with departures but Hynes wants his men to rise to the challenge and avoid the lower ends of the group.
“We’ve been in the Keating Cup for the last two years and we don’t want to end up back in that. You don’t want to be at the bottom of the pile. But look, it’s the senior championship, any club that’s going into the senior championship that doesn’t have some degree of ambition to win the thing is doing themselves a disservice. That’s where we’re at. We don’t want to be in the Keating Cup for sure. We’ve been in it twice and won it once and it’s not the greatest. It is a cup and all that but you don’t want to be in that bracket, you want to avoid that and with that comes the higher ground of qualifying from the group.”
Hynes’ side have a daunting fixture list with three of the big guns all in a row. It could make or break them but Hynes knows if his side have any hopes of making progress, they’ll have to upset the odds at least once.
“When you look at our group on paper, we’ve avoided Rathnew but we’ve got the second, third and fourth favourites and the fixture gods haven’t looked kindly on us. We’ve got Blessington on Saturday, Pat’s the following Friday and Baltinglass next. In 16 days, we’ve got the second, third and fourth favourites.
“We are bottom of the pile on form and on the betting and I suppose there is a reason for that so it’s a huge 16 days for us and anybody in that group, if we want to do anything, we have to take points off those three teams. That’s the reality and that’s what we’re concentrating. Can we take points off them? We think we can. We’re not living in a bubble, we’re not saying we’ll beat everybody by 10 points but if your ambition is to get out of that group, you have to take points off the big three and we have to believe we can. Those 16 days make it a fairly hectic schedule.”
Hynes is not in the business of making excuses but Annacurra have faced a large turnover since 2017 and it has hit them hard. Regardless of that, they’ll be ready and waiting for throw-in.
“We’ve lost six lads from last year. We are a small club and to lose six in a year is a huge problem for us. We got a couple of young lads in but they don’t replace the likes of Vinnie Flaherty or Ciaran Byrne. We had a horrible league campaign. We’re not looking for excuses though.”
JOHN LYNCH - NEWTOWN
It is unlikely that the name of Newtown will be engraved on Miley in 2018 admits manager John Lynch but he wants his players to give it their all nonetheless.
The Magpies manager is realistic about his side’s chances and he would be delighted if they sneak a top three finish and make it to the knock-out stages but he knows the odds will be against his charges.
“We’re more hopeful than anything else. We’re hopeful because in the last few championships we haven’t had that great a run so we’re hopeful that we’ll have a good championship and if things go right for us then you never know.
“It’d be a great achievement for us if we were to get out of the group and who knows then with a bit of luck in the play-off. If you’re not in it, you can’t win it. We would consider it a great achievement to get out of the group because we’re in a very tough group. We’re a Division 2 team and we’re playing Division 1 teams so we’re shifting up a few gears.”
A top three finish for Newtown would be a surprise but surprises go hand-in-hand with the championship. Newtown would have to claim a number of scalps to have any hopes of qualifying and if they did, nobody would be happier than Lynch.
“Championship football is totally different to the league and we have to go in on a positive note and if things went right for us and we got a lot of the rub of the green, we’ll try and prove ourselves against anyone. There’s a lot of teams in our group with great history in the championship whereas we haven’t had much success in the championship so we’d be the underdogs so to qualify out of the group even would be a surprise. It’d be a great achievement for us.
“We’ve a mountain to climb really to get out of the group.”
Newtown GAA is going through a tough time but there’d be nothing like a run in the championship to rejuvenate them.
“We’ve lads going out the door and lads coming to the end of their career and lads just starting their career so we’ve a blend. We lost a generation of footballers to other sports and the gaelic is kind of struggling at the minute. We’ve no junior team - we can only field the one team. It’s not great looking forward because GAA in Newtown is suffering at the moment but we’ll keep ticking over and keep it going. We’ll give it our best anyway and it won’t be for a lack of trying. We’ll give it a shot.”
TONY DENVER - BRAY EMMETS
Having witnessed first hand the impact that the championship can have on Bray Emmets, Tony Denver wants to relight the fire in the sleeping giant of Wicklow GAA.
Denver played in a final himself and sees most years the scenes when their hurling counterparts contest the final so he hopes that a fine football campaign will relaunch Bray’s only Gaelic football club but Denver knows that Emmets have to walk before they can run.
“Firstly, getting out of the group (is the aim). It is winnable but it’s also about making progress on last year when we barely survived. We kind of built from scratch again and we’d 12 senior debutants last year. Getting out of the group is our first priority this year.
“The Kiltegan game is a key game - that’s first up for us. Then we have Eire Og which is another tough one. We’ve played Kiltegan twice this year already - we drew two weeks ago and we beat them down there. For us, the Kiltegan game is the focus.
“We’ve played them (Kiltegan) over the years and it’s pretty much been 50-50. They’ve three or four key players that they’ve had over the years and if we don’t do a job on them, we run the risk of having an uphill battle and having to win the last four games.”
Bray are boosted by some returning stars but must still plan without a handful of important players who are committed to other things. With youth on their side, Denver wants to gatecrash the semi-finals and then hopes that the town of Bray will get behind his troops.
“We’ve got a couple of lads back as well, Adam Benson and Daire Lohan are back. Arran Murphy, Paul Cunningham, Ronan Cunningham are all away. We get a bit of experience back and the bright spark this year have been a few U-18’s who came through and inject something different. They hold no fear. They go out and try to play football and all these things are adding up to a very interesting game in two weeks.
“Our aim is to finish first or second in the group. That’s our sole focus.
“It was great the way it was planned out this year that you could focus on the league and get that over and done with and have a break and now focus on the championship.
“I was part of the 2003 team that got to the final and myself and Brian played in seven semi-finals so we know what it can do to the club. We know about the excitement. It’s a battle getting young lads to believe in football because they want to play hurling but if and when we win it, it’ll feed the juveniles and the 15/16 year olds. It’s building and I think we just need a bit of luck and confidence in ourselves to drive on. “