Déise champions highly unlikely to trouble Temple

Saturday, November 9 Templenoe, 1.30pm Referee: John Ryan (Cork)

TEMPLENOE are in a much nicer position than Kilcummin were this time last year.

In a lot of ways it’s the same. Both have had to deal with the long lay-off between their County Final triumph and their Munster championship bow. The difference comes in who they were both drawn against and, crucially, where.

Kilcummin were facing into a trip across the mighty Shannon to face Kilrush Shamrocks on their home patch. West Clare is not a place you’d choose to go for your first championship match in six months, but Kilcummin battled on through and it was a battle.

The draw has been much more benign to Templenoe. For on thing they get to face a side from Waterford – St Saviours – who have a pretty poor record in these championships against Kerry opposition and for another they get to face them on home soil.

It would be a massive surprise if they weren’t capable of doing the job here, especially seeing as they look set to have a full panel of players at their disposal for this Saturday’s clash with the Déise champions.

“We’re not too bad, we should be able to select from a full deck alright,” Templenoe manager John Rice told The

Kerryman this week.

Temple have a hell of a lot of quality and no just their four Kerry senior footballers.

Guys like

Patrick

Clifford,

Seán

Sheehan,

Teddy

Doyle,

Josh

Crowley Holland and

Stephen

O’Sullivan are scattered all throughout the side. They’ve got quality on every line of the pitch.

Looking at their opponents and it’s hard to see how they can get over them this weekend. In the Kerry county final Temple scored 2-14 against An Ghaeltacht. Against Modeligo, St Saviours only managed eight points for a one point win. Safe to say that won’t be enough against Templenoe and safe to say Templenoe are probably a better side than Modeligo. Their top scorer in the county final is wing-forward

Gareth

Duffy who supplied half of their tally. Defensively they were quite strong with full-back Kevin Boland and corner-back Jack Brophy both impressing. Their goalkeeper, Anthony Kiely, had to make a number of saves too.

Probably the best thing going for Saviours is that they’ve got nothing to lose. They’ve achieved what they wanted to at the start of the season – returning to the senior ranks after a three year absence – so this is a shot to nothing for them.

Having overcome some serious setbacks of their own of late – their club house was burned to the ground in an arson attack in 2015 – they’ve done exceptionally well to get back on track as a club. Still we can’t see a fairytale finish.

Verdict: Templenoe