Kilcummin are full of quality
KILCUMMIN are lucky in a way to be meeting Fermoy now at this stage of the competition.
Had they met in the first round we couldn’t say with absolute conviction that they’d have been sharp enough for the challenge coming down the tracks from the Cork champions.
That’s no knock on the management of Willie Maher and his back-room team, it’s merely an acknowledgement that momentum and match-sharpness can prove decisive in championship football and that before this campaign got underway Kilcummin were a little short on both.
Kilcummin won their County Final at the beginning of May and Fermoy won theirs at the end of last month. That alone could have been enough to swing the game Fermoy’s way.
Of course, that’s not how it played out. The big two were kept apart and Kilcummin now have a couple of games under their belts to prepare for the trip to Mallow this weekend.
The win in Kilrush was worth its weight in gold to the green and red side. A three point victory over their hosts in the Banner might not seem nearly as impressive on paper as their twenty two point mauling of Waterford outfit Kilmacthomas in the semi-final, but it’s by far the more consequential game.
Maher’s men had to dig deep to overcome a genuine test. Kilcummin’s resolve was tested and they weren’t found wanting. At their moment of greatest potential vulnerability they delivered.
Probably Kilcummin would have preferred a tougher test to the one they got from Kilmacthomas, but having gotten over the challenge of Kilrush it probably won’t have done them any harm to have had an easier game a week later.
Fermoy’s gimme game – against Limerick side Galbally – came a round earlier so their tougher game against Moyne-Templetuohy probably came at just the right time for them.
It means that these clubs are coming together just as their form and sharpness converges, which hopefully means we’re in for a cracking game in Mallow this weekend. Until the two teams play we can’t say for certain how it will go, but the indications are that it should be a competitive affair.
Yes Cork football has been pretty much down in the dumps of late – note St Finbarrs’ humbling at the hands of Dr Crokes last weekend – but we don’t have to think back too far to find a Cork club side downing a Kerry side in a Munster final in Mallow.
Around this time last year Knocknagree pulled off something of a coup to defeat a fancied Dromid Pearses side in the Junior decider.
That game was on a knife-edge all through and we’ve no reason to think it won’t be something similar this time around.
Fermoy are a quality side. That they were able to win through against Moyne-Templetuohy with the minimum of fuss – away from home – despite being without players of the quality of Tomás Clancy, Ruairí O’Hagan, Brian O’Sullivan and Eoin Clancy is significant.
The bookies have Kilcummin in as heavy favourites – at 4/1 as of late last week – but we see this is much closer to a fifty/fifty proposition. If their county man Kevin McCarthy was fit and available then, yes, Kilcummin would be much more heavily favoured, but his (likely) absence is a factor in this game.
When Kilcummin were at their best back in April and May, McCarthy was the main man. The partnership he developed with Noel Duggan took the intermediate championship by storm.
That said Duggan – scorer of 1-5, 1-3 from play against Kilmacthomas – seems to be doing pretty alright in his colleague’s absence. With McCarthy out of the equation, the burden of leadership up front has fallen on Duggan’s shoulders and the corner-forward seems to have embraced it and flourished.
Even without McCarthy, Kilcummin are a side full of quality. Brendan Kealy is top quality as we all know. At the back the Maher brothers Donal and William are playing really well, Chris O’Leary is coming on in leaps and bounds and Seán O’Leary is a real leader.
Out around the middle of the park the ever-reliable pairing of Kevin O’Gorman and Shane McSweeney are a match for anyone at this level. As a senior club for the best part of a decade and-a-half you’d expect little else.
Probably that’s where they’re going to hold a decisive advantage over their Rebel rivals. That depth of experience of football at the highest level is bound to stand to them in a close game with Fermoy.
A first ever Munster title should not be beyond the East Kerry men.
– Damian Stack