Moynihan feels O’Mahony has grounds for appeal

WITH the availability of Aidan O’mahony only being decided upon by last night’s appeal by the club of the red card he received in the semi-final replay against Currow, Rathmore manager Denis Moynihan is still not certain of his starting 15 for Sunday’s eagerly awaited O’donoghue Cup final rematch with their conquerors of last year Dr Crokes.

Moynihan says the club would not be appealing the red card unless it felt it had a strong case. “Watching the video footage of the incident I felt it was nothing major and we wouldn’t be appealing it if we felt we didn’t have a chance of the decision being overturned,” he said.

Somewhat surprisingly the Rathmore boss feels the club were in a better position going into the 2010 final even with the club’s amazing comeback in the Senior Club Championship semi-final against the same opposition as well as the eventual triumph in the competition under their belts in this campaign.

“We had no interruptions going into last year’s final whereas this year we’ve had players involved with the Kerry U-21’s, Colleges and training over Christmas has been fairly tough so it hasn’t been ideal in my opinion,” Moynihan said. The club’s barnstorming comeback in the Senior Club Championship semifinal would indicate otherwise but he still refuses to read too much into the game in early October.

“I would say the Crokes gave us that game as opposed to us actually winning it. In contrast I thought we played better in last year’s O’donoghue Cup final and got nothing from it. Certainly I would not fancy giving the Crokes another nine point lead on Sunday!” the Rathmore manager opined.

Discipline is another area Moynihan feels his side need to be in control of if they are to usurp their opponents for the first time in the competition since 1999.

“They have plenty of free takers who will punish us if we are slack there and all finals are won and lost on free-kicks, we missed eight out of thirteen in last year’s final and that told at the final whistle. Overall again I would say that we are more hopeful than confident going into this but that still won’t stop us giving it everything we’ve got on Sunday.

“Crokes will be very alert to us and seeing as this will be their last competitive match before they play Crossmaglen and I would be very mindful that they will probably be peaking at just about the right time in their own minds.”