Kenmare fancied to down Kilfenora

MUNSTER CLUB IFC SEMI-FINAL

Kenmare v Kilfenora (Clare) Sunday, November 13 Fitzgerald Stadium, 2.30pm SUNDAY will be as near as makes no difference to three years to the day since a Clare team downed a Kerry team in the Munster intermediate semi-final.

That’s about all the warning Kenmare Shamrocks will need ahead of this weekend’s tie with Kilfenora. Granted the circumstances are quite different now than then, but it’s worth bearing in mind all the same.

The differences are that in 2013 Currow had to travel to Clare for the game on a thoroughly miserable day in Miltown, this weekend the Shamrocks are hosts on a pitch they know inside out and back to front.

It’s also worth contrasting this Kilfenora team with that St Josephs team. The word in Clare is that there isn’t much by way of a comparison. St Josephs were a senior club in all but name having suffered a shock relegation the year before (they’ve since won a senior title to prove the point).

Kilfenora were a junior club not so long ago. They’re a club making progress and it would be a grave mistake to underestimate them, all the same they don’t seem to have a comparable level of talent to this Kenmare Shamrocks outfit.

Their big hitters are midfielders, brothers and inter-county stars Cian and Jack O’Dea. They’ll fancy their chances of coming out on top in that department, but neither John Mark Foley nor David Hallissey are slouches themselves.

Up front Kilfenora will hope for a strong return from corner-forward Killian Malone. He scored big in both the drawn county final and the replay – he scored the goal that saw them over the line against Kildysart.

Even so they don’t look to have a great spread of scorers, just three in the county final replay got on the scoreboard. Contrast that with the array of attacking talent Kenmare have at their disposal.

Think less of the day they kicked 4-25 against Fethard and more of the county final when they ran riot against Templenoe. Seán O’Shea, Patrick O’Shea, Seán O’Leary, Paul O’Connor, all these guys are capable of punishing Kilfenora.

That’s before we even mention their inter-county star Stephen O’Brien. It was in Fitzgerald Stadium against a Clare team in June that he gave arguably his finest performance of the year. A repeat performance isn’t out of the question.

Verdict: Kenmare