Club Championships: Premier and Junior
IF you’re reading this for some sort of steer as to what team will be the next and new County Premier Junior football champions then all we can say is: we really don’t know.
That applies every year, you say, and more often than not our predictions are as far out as a lighthouse, but at least they are based on some sort of form lines, even if that’s only a couple of county league games and, in some cases, a little bit of district league action.
We’ve certainly never had to preview a championship off the back of a (on-going) pandemic, and a four-month enforced hiatus from training and games. In other words, you’ll forgive us if this Premier Junior Championship preview turns out to be a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey exercise.
Notwithstanding the hurdles, we’ll attempt to clear them anyway.
Teams in this championship span four divisions of the county league from Division 2 all the way down to Division 5. Each group has a Division 2 team - Gneeveguilla, Ballymacalligott, Ballydonoghue and Listry - so on the simplest metric, the champion should more than likely come from this quartet.
However, scratch a little deeper and one realises that nine of the teams contesting the 2020 Premier Junior Championship were Division 3 teams in 2019, and that Gneeveguilla, Ballydonoghue and Listry all won promotion to the second tier last year while Firies and Fossa went the other direction down to Division 4.
Then consider that Brosna were in Division 2 last year and Churchill were in Division 4, but when they pair met in the only round of games played in Division 3 back in March they drew with each other. They are now due to meet in Group 2, alongside Ballymacelligott, who very narrowly missed out on promotion to Division 1, and St Michaels/Foilmore who slipped to Division 5 after losing a relegation play-off.
Group 1 pits Gneeveguilla (Division 2), St Pats (Division 3), Fossa (Division 4) and St Michaels/ Foilmore (Division 5), and Gneeveguilla will almost certainly come out of the group, and probably as winners. The Clifford factor might just see Fossa edge St Pats for the second qualifiying place.
Group 2 will be a three-way race with Ballymac strongly tipped to emerge, while Churchill and Brosna will vie for that second spot, although the former, under the guidance of new manager William Kirby, are a coming force and could grab that top spot.
Listry - promoted to Division 2 last year and now under manager Marc Ó Sé - will be an interesting prospect, while 2007 and 2013 champions Keel cannot be dismissed lightly. Firies were relegated (third worst points) from Division 3 while Finuge missed out on promotion to Division 3 after losing a play-off to Laune Rangers. It seems a case of who qualifies from the group with Listry, and Firies might need to take something from their first round game with their East Kerry neighbours if they’re to advance. The loser of the Keel v Finuge game will probably miss out on
the quarter-finals.
It’s odd-on that two north Kerry teams will qualify from Group 4, with Division 4 side Skellig Rangers among tough company in the form of Listowel Emmets and St Senans (both Division 3) and Ballydonoghue who went up to Division 2 last year.
St Senans lost last year’s Premier Junior final to eventual All-Ireland champions Na Gaeil, and they have to be among the strong title contenders this year, while Listowel’s ambitions will rest largely on whether or not Conor Cox can make the long journey down from his home in Leitrim and commit to the Emmets before rejoining the Roscommon senior panel in September.
Ballydonoghue make us nervous for the simple reason that we’ve fancied them to do really well in this championship over the last couple of years and they’ve let us and themselves down each time with sub-standard performances. Of course, we’d write them off again at our peril so we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt to get out of the group, but after that it’s anyone’s guess.
The introduction of quarter-finals adds a new dimension, with two instead of one to qualify from each group. It should make for a better group phase, ensuring that teams losing their first game don’t throw in the towel, and hopefully making for meaningful matches up to and including the third round of fixtures.
What it all means with regard to predicting a champion is anyone’s guess. By the time the eight quarter-finalists are known each of the eight will have played three games in as many weeks, but then the competition takes a break and the schedule for the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final is, as of now, unclear. Beyond that other factors - injuries, suspensions, county players, etc - will come into play.
Needless to say, predictions become even more difficult when a clear pathway through the knockout phase isn’t known, but assuming they don’t meet each other beforehand - and if we’re going to be held to a verdict - we’ll say Gneeveguilla to beat St Senans in the final.