Dingle should have the quality to bounce back against St Kierans

GARVEY’S COUNTY SFC ROUND 3

Dingle v St Kierans

Saturday, September 15 Austin Stack Park 5pm (Extra-time)

ON any other day 2-10 would have represented a pretty decent return in a county championship match. Good enough certainly to win a majority of games. The trouble for Dingle was this wasn’t any other day – this was the day when they came up against an East Kerry team who seem to be scoring for fun at the moment.

No team can possibly expect to win a game where they concede six goals. Still for Paul Geaney to score 2-2 from play and still come out on the losing side has to be a bit of a mind-bender for the All Star footballer.

It’s going to be interesting to see how Geaney and the team as a whole react to last weekend’s defeat and the manner of it. Before Sunday they probably would have been feeling reasonably good about how the campaign had begun with a big win over Shannon Rangers.

When you look at the team – even without Darragh O’Sullivan who admittedly was a big loss – they’ve got plenty of quality. Players like Tom O’Sullivan, Barry O’Sullivan, Mikey Geaney, Paul Geaney, Matthew Flaherty have got to be thinking they’re good enough to recover from last weekend’s humbling.

We’d be thinking along similar lines. That said St Kierans are a very solid outfit. Their performance against Dr Crokes in Lewis Road in the first round is indicative of the good shape they’re in right now.

They weren’t quite as impressive last weekend in seeing off fourteen-man Feale Rangers, but they’ve got a cohesion and a unity of purpose that’s impressive for a district side at this early stage of the competition. Pat O’Shea’s side never panicked in Frank Sheehy Park last weekend, they trusted in each other and in what they were doing and got the rewards for it. The Saints have a good bench and got good return from it on Sunday, but we do wonder whether they’ll have the firepower to compete with this Dingle side. If Thomas Hickey is in a position to start the game – and Eddie Horan for that matter too – then there won’t be much at all between the sides. That said if Dingle can get a decent supply of ball into Paul Geaney – as Feale Rangers did to Conor Cox – then there are scores and goals to be pilfered from that Kierans fullback line.

Verdict:

Dingle