Moving round in Club Championships

IN golf tournaments the Saturday is known as ‘moving day’ when the golfers try to get as far up the leaderboard as possible and into the late tee times for the Sunday. This weekend is, for all intents and purposes, the moving round in the Club Championships with everything still to play for and everything to lose for all 56 teams involved.

Last weekend’s first round of group games threw up a huge amount of great games and some surprise results, and this weekend will see the Championship dream and the ‘road to Croker’ end for some clubs, while others can take a major step towards topping their group and reaching the county semi-finals, or the final in the case of the Senior Club Championship.

In that competition Kerins O’Rahillys, An Ghaeltacht, Kenmare Shamrocks and Rathmore are playing for their championship lives after losing last weekend, and incidentally all four are playing round one winners this Sunday.

In the Intermediate Championship, fancied St Marys and Templenoe both won their first round games, while in the Premier Junior Na Gaeil justified their favouritism with a 15-point win over Listowel. Balydonoghue’s defeat to Churchill was a slight upset, although the latter did beat the north Kerry club in last year’s Championship also.

In the Junior Championship Lispole and Castlegregory enjoyed round one wins to cement their favouritism for that title.

It was a fairly indifferent weekend for the county men, with several not even playing.

David Moran was a late withdrawal from the Kerins O’Rahillys team, and doesn’t look like he will feature this weekend against Dr Crokes, who were without Colm Cooper but who is expected to be available this weekend.

Anthony Maher played an integral part in Duagh’s win over Tuosist in the Junior Championship, and Donnchach Walsh featured for Cromane in their one-point win over Kilgarvan, but Brendan O’Sullivan didn’t line out for Valentia and Darran O’Sullivan was ruled out through injury for Glenbeigh/ Glencar.

Templenoe fared better with Tadhg Morley, Killian and Adrian Spillane featuring in their big win over Currow, while Kieran Donaghy, Ronan Shanahan and Greg Horan all hand a big say in Stacks’ derby win over O’Rahillys.

Paul Geaney was the headline act of the Kerry players as he scored 3-5 in Dingle’s win over

Rathmore, with Barry O’Sullivan and Matthew Flaherty also on the scorebaord, but Mikey Geaney was absent from the Dingle team.

Interestingly, James O’Donoghue was listed on the Legion team in the match programme (wearing no.32) but he failed to make an appearance, which would have been his first action since injuring his calf muscle against Donegal at the end of January. >> See inside for eight pages on the Club Championships

Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images Mark O’Connor of the Geelong Cats looks upfield during the round two AFL match between the Geelong Cats and the Hawthorn Hawks at Melbourne Cricket Ground on Monday in Melbourne, Australia. The Dingle man was a very late replacement in the Geelong...