Weekend of talking points, shocks and drama in SFC
County Board PRO
John O’Leary
with all the GAA news WHAT started out as a mundane weekend of Garveys Supervalu senior football championship action certainly threw up plenty of talking points last weekend. Unfortunately, chief among those talking points was the failure of Kenmare District Board to fulfil their first round fixture with Dingle fixed for Saturday last in Dingle. The county committee were informed around midday of Kenmare's inability to field a team for a host of different reasons, and while one can have plenty of sympathy for the obstacles Divisional Boards have to surmount in preparing a championship team, there is really no excuse for what happened last weekend.
First of all, the County Championship itself has taken a severe battering, and the deliberations of the County Championship Review Committee under Tony O'Keeffe cannot come a day too soon. One can only feel sympathy too for the host club Dingle who put a lot of preparation into the staging of the event, competition sponsors The Garvey Group who are strongly associated with the Dingle area, not to mention a host of other people such as players, mentors and supporters who were inconvenienced in one way or another on what was a major Bank Holiday weekend. It was indeed a sad day for our flagship competition.
Thankfully, by the end of the weekend, it was the exploits of the teams on the field that was taking up most of the championship discussion. Chief among those topics was the defeat of four-in-a-row champions Dr Crokes by their East Kerry neighbours Rathmore. Dr Crokes, of course, have had a magnificent run of twenty games without defeat in the championship and one has to go way back to the final of 2009 for their last championship defeat - at the hands of South Kerry. Rathmore have a great tradition of bringing young players through to senior level and on Sunday evening last it was another one of those young players, Shane Ryan, who did most to turn the tide in his side's favour. Dr Crokes have not gone away either and the wounded lion will be more dangerous than ever from now on in.
Another noteworthy performance last weekend was the return to winning ways of Shannon Rangers whose victory over Kilcummin was their first in the championship since 2011. There were some fine individual performances in Fitzgerald Stadium where East Kerry defeated Killarney Legion in a high scoring game, while in Caherciveen, South Kerry turned the tables on Kerins O'Rahillys following the Tralee's side victory over their host in round 3 of the competition at the same venue last year.
Elsewhere, Austin Stacks have to be satisfied with their performance in beating Feale Rangers in Listowel, even without the injured Kieran Donaghy, while Mid Kerry, a side that could have a good championship run this year, started their campaign with victory over St Kierans in Castleisland. St Michaels/Foilmore had the better of competition debutantes, Currow.
Meanwhile, West Kerry and Milltown-Castlemaine face off in the replay of their Garveys Supervalu first round fixture this evening (Wednesday) in Austin Stack Park, Tralee at 7:45pm. While in most circumstances, teams would have a home venue for such a fixture - Castlegregory is the named home venue for West Kerry this year - venues are at the discretion of the CCC and on this occasion the later throw in time and venue was decided on to allow ample travel time for players travelling from outside the county and also to allow for floodlighting should extra time be required.
The draw for Round 2 of the Garveys Supervalu Senior Football Championship was made by the CCC on Monday and resulted in the following pairings: Saturday, June 7 St Kierans v Killarney Legion in Castleisland Sunday, June 8 Dr Crokes v Kenmare in Lewis Road, 2pm
Kerins O'Rahillys v Feale Rangers in Strand Road, 4pm
West Kerry or Milltown-Castlemaine v Kilcummin in Castlegregory or Milltown, 6pm Saturday June 28 Currow v St Brendans in Currow, 7pm
West Kerry play Milltown-Castlemaine in the Round 1 Replay in Austin Stack Park on Wednesday at 7:45pm.
CCC Statement on Kenmare's failure to fulfil county championship fixture
The CCC of the Kerry County Committee met on Monday evening to discuss the failure of Kenmare District Board to fulfil their first round county championship fixture with Dingle.
More to come