The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Na Gaeil look best placed
Damian Stack takes a look ahead to what promises to be a fascinating County Premier Junior club football championship
THE Premier Junior Championship – formerly the Junior championship – is quite often the most entertaining of the three big championships here in the Kingdom.
That there’s ferocious competition goes without saying. That there’s interesting stories and tales of near misses and years of frustrated ambition, sometimes fulfilled, sometimes not, also goes without saying.
No the thing that stands the junior championship apart is the type of football we see played. It’s often – although obviously not always – a little more open than that you’ll find at senior and intermediate level. It’s a championship where one or two special players can make all the difference.
Where Gavan O’Grady and
Darran O’Sullivan can provide the spark for Glenbeigh / Glencar. Where
Tom McGoldrick can do so for Brosna. Where Niall Ó Sé can for Dromid Pearses.
Every club who harbours serious ambitions of county, Munster and All Ireland success – and this is Kerry, they all do – needs those special players, those special forwards especially, although not always.
For pre-championship favourites Na Gaeil Jack Barry will carry a lot of their hopes upon his broad shoulders. To have a guy like that in the engine room, power and pace and the ability to strike from deep, will be hugely advantageous.
Having Diarmuid O’Connor, a star man from last year’s All Ireland minor winning side, coming on steam will boost them further. Enough to see them challenge for this year’s title? Quite possibly. They’ll be most people’s fancies for the title and
we see no
reason at this point to diverge from the consensus opinion.
Their position in Group 4 looks – and, yes, looks can be deceiving – looks more solid than any of the other main contenders. On that basis alone you’d have to make them ante-post favourites.
In the other groups there’s a lot more doubt. In Group 1 we’d fancy Firies to emerge, but Beaufort aren’t exactly mugs either. With the powerful players they have, particularly down the flanks, it’s very easy to imagine them coming out on top of their group and into the semi-finals.
The fascinating thing about the new format of these championships is how much of a role the luck of the draw will play. It was always the case that a good draw was worth its weight in gold, but over a three round group that should be evened out somewhat. Everybody gets a home game, an away fixture and a game at a neutral ground.
Where it becomes really interesting is in terms of when – and where – you draw your biggest rivals to come out of the group. In Group 1 Firies and Beaufort meet on neutral turf making for an absolutely mouth-watering tie.
In Group 2 we’ve a feeling Ballydonoghue have what it takes. The trouble is the North Kerry outfit remain unproven at this level. Sure injuries played their part in their defeat to Churchill last year, but in this championship experience counts. Teams often challenge for a couple of campaigns – Glenbeigh / Glencar are the exemplar of this – before finally getting over the line.
Ballydonoghue didn’t challenged last year, can they be expected to win a title when they haven’t even challenged? Possibly not. They do, however, need to start challenging consistently rather than later so why not now? Why not indeed – Skellig Rangers and Listry might have something to say about that.
Group 3 is a real tough one to call. We’re going to give a hesitant nod to Fossa if only because of the boy wonder of Kerry football, David Clifford. While we don’t want to lump pressure upon his shoulders, it’s what we said earlier – in this championship special invididuals can make all the difference and the boy’s a bit special. St Pats and Keel will probably bristle at the notion of Fossa jumping ahead of them, but do any of the other Group 3 clubs have a talent like Clifford on their books?
So that leaves us with a potential semi-final line up of Firies, Ballydonoghue, Fossa and Na Gaeil and after that it’s anybody’s championship to win or to lose. The semi-final draw is open and so is this championship.
At this stage, as we’ve said, we lean towards Na Gaeil on the basis that they’re building something and that they’ve still got loads of potential. So too do Fossa and Ballydonoghue and Firies, but our impression is that Na Gaeil are a little more advanced in their project as of now and in this championsihp that counts for a lot.
Of course the events of the next couple of weeks could make fools of us. There’s bound to be a bolter or two come the semi-final stage. Whatever happens it should be fascinating. The group structure looks set to make an interesting championship even more intriguing.