Fearless Rathmore can account for Mid Kerry

COUNTY SFC QUARTER-FINAL

Mid Kerry v Rathmore Sunday, October 2 Fitzgerald Stadium, 2pm

IT’S not always easy making an informed judgement on these post All Ireland, county championship games.

Form is far too sketchy. Impressing in the earlier part of the campaign – or even in previous years – is not necessarily a guide to future performance and, yet, what else do we have to go on?

For clubs at least there’s county league fixtures to draw upon for context. For a district side? We have little more than blind faith in the abilities of the manager and the calibre of player on view to base our judgement upon.

On that basis you’d have to imagine Mid Kerry will be competitive on Sunday afternoon. If anybody knows how to get a team prepared for a county championship fixture it’s James Sheehan.

The Killorglin man has to be amongst the most effective organisers of district teams in this championship going back over ten years. He’ll need all that nous and more to have Mid Kerry performing at the right pitch to take on a Rathmore side buoyed by a more than solid performance in the county league. Glenbeigh / Glencar’s County Premier Junior semi-final last weekend did Mid Kerry no favours remember.

The Rathbeg outfit topped the table in Division 2 and come into this game with some meaningful momentum from that. Remember too that the bulk of the heavy lifting in their promotion push was achieved without their inter-county players.

Rathmore have that type of quality at their disposal at the moment. The conveyor-belt of talent emerging from the club has been hugely impressive over the past couple of years, you need look no further than the All Ireland minor final for evidence of that (both Mark Ryan and Brian Friel started).

On the minus side for them they will be, according to manger Denis Moynihan, without two key defenders. Cathal Murphy is ruled out with a broken finger, while centre back Conor O’Sullivan is set to miss out with a hamstring injury. Impact player and corner-forward Dean Fitzgerald is likely ruled out for six weeks with a groin injury.

“Preparations have been going well,” Moynihan says. “We’re not in a bad place at all. With a district side you’re never quite sure how they’ll go, on their day they could nearly beat an inter-county side, but that said we won’t fear anybody.”

Rathmore edged by a highly regarded district side – St Kierans – in the last round and will feel relatively confident they can repeat the trick this weekend, even if it took a cracker of a goal by Mark Reen in extra-time to ensure they did so.

Mid Kerry have always been a competitive beast in championship, but the addition of Laune Rangers to the mix from 2016 was always likely to strengthen their hand further and so it has proved.

The addition of two starters – in the earlier part of the campaign at least; it might be more now – has given Sheehan a greater depth to be able to draw upon. Peter Crowley and John Tyther have both taken up roles in defence.

One gets the strongest sense that should Mid Kerry get over this weekend’s game they could be a seriously difficult side to stop in a semi-final or final. At the same time Rathmore as a club side should be that bit more cohesive.

Moynihan’s men probably feel they left a place in last year’s final behind them and, that being the case, will be all out to make amends in 2016.

Verdict: Rathmore

All-Ireland winning Kerry minor footballers Mark Ryan and Brian Friel, from Rathmore, brought the Tommy Markham Cup back to their alma mater Scoil Phobail Sliabh Luachra where they received a heroes’ welcome.

Photos by Eamonn Keogh All-Ireland winning Kerry minor footballers Brian Friel and Mark Ryan, past pupils of PS Sliabh Luanchra Rathmore, receiving a presentation from Sinead Warren (Students Council) and School Principal Denis Kerins.