St Brendans Killarney
A LONG reign of success ended with defeat to eventual winners Pobalscoil Corcha Dhuibhne last year at the Semi-Final stage and while there is a rather young look to the side, ‘The Sem’ remain amongst one of the perennial favourites for the competition. Gary McGrath remains on as manager of the senior side of the School that leads the Corn Uí Mhuirí Roll of Honour with 22 titles.
He feels the change to U-19 will make it harder for Kerry sides. “For Schools with repeat Leaving Certs it is an advantage as age is not a factor now in whether you can bring in repeats or not but we still have a very young group with this change and regardless of what people might think of our own chances this year our focus is still just to try and get out of the group which will be hard considering that Killorglin side contains most of the Mid Kerry team that won the U-16 County Championship,” he said.
Paul O’Shea and Darragh Lyne will need no introduction to people after their exploits with the Kerry Minors with Patrick D’Arcy, Michael Lenihan and both Kerry Minor goalkeepers Marc Kelliher and Keith O’Leary from the All-Ireland winning panel in their ranks. Gary Vaughan from Spa is another to look out from as Eoghan O’Sullivan, Ryan O’Grady and Emmet O’Shea were involved in their Frewen Cup side that eventually lost the Paul McGirr Cup decider at All-Ireland level.
A loss to SPSL Rathmore in the O’Sullivan Cup is a setback they could do without ahead of the start of provincial matters but the Sem will be expected to go deep again at this level. Whether age becomes a factor for them in the final shake-up remains to be seen.