The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Senior, Intermediate and Premier Junior previews
Damian Stack looks ahead to what should be an absolutely fascinating County Intermediate Football championship
THIS championship is insanely competitive. Not one of the four groups could you make a definitive call on at this stage – they’re all incredibly tight calls.
Beyond the competitiveness there’s the quality. There are so many good teams in this championship. We suppose that’s the fruits of the championship reorganisation driven by Tony O’Keeffe a couple of years ago.
In a lot of other counties these clubs would be operating as senior clubs. With space limited to just eight senior clubs, somebody’s got to miss out and instead make do with a place in an ultra-competitive intermediate championship.
It means that whoever wins in Kerry has a really good chance of going all the way to Croke Park in the middle of February. That’s a huge carrot, which of course, plays into the competitiveness of the competition in a whole other way.
The new structure too will make this championship even more exciting. The group phase should be on a knife-edge right up to the final round in all these groups. Of course there might be the occasional dead rubber – and even then relegation factors in to make no match truly non-competitive.
Overall there should be plenty to keep everybody on the edge of their seats. Some of the best footballers in the country will play in this year’s intermediate championship. A lot of Kerry’s up and coming stars will feature too.
Guys who played during the league – Killian Spillane for instance – guys from whom the Kerry Under 20s and Jack O’Connor are of more immediate concern – Dara Moynihan – and guys who are more established performers – Peter Crowley.
Sometimes the games in the intermediate championship can be a little more cagey than those in the Premier Junior championship, teams tend to be a little bit more structured. The final last year, however, was as rollicking good game from start to finish.
It’s a game Templenoe will feel they could have won, unlike the previous year’s final where they failed to fire. Templenoe’s performance against An Ghaeltacht makes them about the closest thing we have to favourites for this competition and, yet, we can’t even be certain they’ll emerge from their group.
Spa are going to be gunning for them in Group 4 and neither Gneeveguilla or Currow are going to be soft touches either. The order of games and the venues for them are likely to determine a lot.
If everything goes according to plan in Group 4 we could be looking at a last round decider between Spa and Templenoe in Templenoe. From this vantage point – and even accounting for Gavin Crowley’s injury – we’d be leaning towards Templenoe in that game.
Group 1 is another interesting group. We’d make Kilcummin margin favourites to win it, but the fact they’ve to travel to Milltown to face Milltown / Castlemaine could come against them.
Glenbeigh / Glencar are doing really well at the moment too, however, and if they were to get the better of Kilcummin on neutral territory – Beaufort – they would have a major say in the group.
Group 2 is possibly the most clear-cut of all the groups. St Marys seem to be the outstanding team and have a relatively benign series of fixtures. Their most difficult game would appear to be the second round away from home against John Mitchels.
That said Dromid won’t be at all an easy proposition this weekend in the derby on neutral ground – Watervillle – and Brosna are more than capable of causing an upset or two along the way.
Group 3 has four very evenly matched sides. At this juncture we’d just about lean towards Castleisland Desmonds, but equally compelling cases could be made for Waterville, Glenflesk and Laune Rangers.
The fixtures don’t particularly favour a rejuvenated Rangers, however. They’ve got to travel to Cahersiveen to face Waterville and to Castleisland to face Desmonds in the opening two games.
It’s on such things that teams’ fate will be decided. Narrow margins, marginal gains. It makes predicting a difficult game, even more so than normal. There’s every chance some of our
tips for the semi-finals – Kilcummin, St Marys, Castleisland Desmonds and Templenoe – might not make it.
There’s every chance a bolter or two will emerge from the pack and take their place instead. As a matter of fact it’s a racing certainty that this will happen, as we’ve said there’s very little to choose between a lot of the teams in these groups.
Still we’ve paid our money and made our choices. Those are the teams we think most likely to challenge and we’ve given Templenoe a hesitant nod as pre-championship favourites.
If it’s not Templenoe we suspect it’s going to be St Marys and, if they avoid each other at the semi-final stage, they could well meet in a county final and what a county final that would be.
St Marys are an excellent side and having Bryan Sheehan back as a full-time driving force could prove the difference for them this year. Championships have been decided by smaller things.
Let the games begin.