South Kerry can recover to apply knockout to Rathmore

GARVEY’S COUNTY SFC ROUND 3

South Kerry v Rathmore Saturday, September 15 Killorglin 5pm (Extra-time)

IT’S hard to believe that (barring a draw) one of these team will be out of the competition by close of business Saturday night, but that’s Championship football for you, and the price to be paid for losing a Round Two game.

After the early promise of their win over Kenmare Shamrocks, South Kerry came a cropper against Austin Stacks in Con Keating Park, and so for the first time they must venture outside of Cahersiveen to face another team that will play away from home for the first time.

South Kerry didn’t do a whole lot wrong insofar as they scored 1-15, a score that would win a lot of games, but the problem was that they leaked four goals to a Stacks team well capable of exploiting such generosity.

Rathmore will have sat up this week and taken note: Shane Ryan is capable of taking equal advantage of such porous defending.

Such wanton concession of goals was somewhat of a surprise given the quality of South Kerry defenders like Graham O’Sullivan, Mark Griffin and Paul O’Sullivan, but it’s clear that the injured Killian Young was missed in that defence.

Bryan Sheehan’s free taking kept the divisional team in contention throughout, and Rathmore will have to be mindful of coughing up too many frees within the St Marys man’s sizeable range.

Like South Kerry, Rathmore saw off Kenmare Shamrocks last weekend, but only just, and on the back of the previous week’s Round One loss to Legion in Rathbeg the form line isn’t brilliant coming into this game.

Shane Ryan ( pictured) is the Championship top scorer thus far and the goalkeeper turned forward will be asked to save his club’s Championship ambitions. However, he won’t be able to do it alone so others will need to step up further and put in the collective shift that this team is capable of.

Recent East Kerry Championship successes can vouch for this team’s ability but they are meeting a fairly seasoned county championship unit in South Kerry and they will get nothing easy from hardened players like Griffin, Sheehan, Denis Daly and Niall O’Shea.

Rathmore have quality and experience through the middle with Paul Murphy, Donal O’Sullivan, George O’Keeffe and Eoin Lawlor able to take a game by the scruff of the neck, but the inclination is that if South Kerry can tighten up that defence that they have the power and precision to mine more scores.

Verdict:

South Kerry