Dr Crokes will bounce back to see off O’Rahillys

COUNTY SFC QUARTER-FINAL Dr Crokes v Kerins O’Rahillys Saturday, October 1 Fitzgerald Stadium, Killarney

AN intriguing clash between two club teams with strong credentials to win outright honours this year. Dr Crokes, of course, have a far stronger case than O’Rahillys to claim the title, and will be rightly tipped to advance to the last four, but the Tralee club - with David Moran, Barry John Keane, Tommy Walsh and Jack Savage among their ranks - can’t be dismissed.

Of primary concern for Dr Crokes will be how they react to their recent Senior Club Final defeat to Austin Stacks and whether that has stoked the fire in their bellies or extinguished their prospects to reclaiming the title they last won in 2013. Crokes, it must be noted, only lost to Stacks by one point so it hardly constitutes a crisis, and the danger for O’Rahillys is that they might be on the receiving end of a backlash from the Killarney men.

The Crokes management have had a couple of extra weeks to integrate their county men into the team, and they’re bound to be better on Sunday for having Colm Cooper, Johnny Buckley, Fionn Fitzgerald, Tony Brosnan and Gavin White at training for the past month.

Team selector Harry O’Neill says that there is a “bedding in period” for the Kerry panellists but he feels “the old telepathy is coming back” and he expects a cohesive and focused Crokes team to arrive on Sunday.

Quite how O’Rahillys are set coming into this game is the big question. They don’t have the benefit of a recent championship game as Crokes have had, and their County League form all season has been average enough. Five wins, five losses and a draw suggest a team lacking consistency, and co-manager Morgan Nix has admitted that he’d have preferred to have avoided Crokes in the quarter-final.

“It’s a tough draw, no doubt, and I wouldn’t have minded avoiding them in this round, but we have them and we’ll get on with it,” he said. “Crokes have six forwards and everyone is a match winner. We know we’re up against it but we have a good bit of work done.”

Nix and Micheal Quirke will know exactly what they expect to get from Moran, Keane and Savage, but it’s the contributions from the other twelve players that will determine what they can put up to Crokes. Tommy Walsh can be a difficult target man at full forward but they will need Kieran O’Mahony, John Ferguson and Barrett feeding off him and picking up scores.

John C O’Connor has developed into an accomplished midfielder and in defence they have tenacious backs like Danny O’Sullivan, Shane Brosnan, Ross O’Callaghan and Coffey, who will need to be at the top of their game to subdue Cooper, Daithi Casey, Kieran O’Leary and Tony Brosnan.

Shane Doolan is Crokes’ only long-term injury absentee, with O’Neill reporting that Eoin Brosnan, Luke Quinn, Jordan Kiely and Micheal Burns are all back available after recent injury lay-offs.

O’Rahillys are similarly set with only David McLoughlin unavailable. Cian Sayers, Cormac Coffey and Tommy Begley are back from a summer in America and Con Barrett has recovered fully from a troublesome spell with injury.

The Tralee club will sense Crokes are there for the taking but assuming the Killarney men have regrouped and refocussed they have the goods to advance.

VERDICT: Dr Crokes