The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
The cream rises to the top for South Kerry final
SOUTH KERRY SFC FINAL Dromid Pearses v St Marys Saturday, December 1 Con Keating Park, Cahersiveen 2.30pm
THE cream has risen to the top.
For the neutral this is the South Kerry final everybody wanted to see. The best two teams in the district going head-to-head. Big names and big personalities facing off on the blue ribbon day.
It doesn’t always necessarily always follow that the two top teams in a championship will face off against each other in the final. The draw can conspire against it so we really should relish it when it does come to pass.
Dromid and St Marys are the top-ranked sides in the South Kerry championship based on county league and championship form over the last twenty four months and – most importantly – they’ve got previous here in the race for the Jack Murphy Cup.
Last year’s final will loom large over this Saturday afternoon’s renewal in Cahersiveen. There was nothing at all between the sides in that contest late last December – 0-13 to 1-9 – and the hope and suspicion must be that we’ll get something similar this time around.
After last year’s final they two sides soon faced off again in this year’s intermediate championship and again there was nothing more than a kick of a ball between the two South Kerry powerhouses – 0-10 to 0-7.
The trouble from Dromid’s point of view is that they came out second best on each of those occasions, which suggests – and it’s backed up by the two clubs’ positions in the county league, St Marys in Division 1 and Dromid in Division 2 – that St Marys are probably the better side (even if only marginally so) and the side with the greater strength in depth.
That would be our assessment too. The thing is though, district finals are their own beast entirely. Look at what happened in the West Kerry final for guidance – on paper Annascaul shouldn’t have been a match for Dingle and, yet, they very nearly pulled it off.
Dromid, of course, are much closer to St Marys than Annascaul nominally were to Dingle. Dromid won’t fear the Marys, they know deep in their bones that they’re not far off them, that they can win this match.
Remember too that St Marys have the burden of history upon their shoulders. The Cahersiveen men are going for five in-a-row this weekend. It wouldn’t be the first time the club achieved the feat – they won five titles between 1940 and 1944 – but the fact it’s only been achieved once before tells you how desperately difficult a thing it is to do.
It’s also hard to keep beating the same team over and over again. The ball will have to break Dromid’s way sooner rather than later and this Saturday could be that day as they seek to claim their second ever South Kerry title.
They’ve looked possibly the most impressive side over the course of the South Kerry championship, indicating a greater level of hunger and desire than their rivals on the Iveragh Peninsula. That said St Marys’ dismissal of Valentia in the last round was the type of scoreline that would make you sit up and take notice.
If St Marys hit that kind of form they’ll be exceptionally hard to stop. On this occasion though we just feel that Dromid might just have the greater motivation. Obviously there won’t be much in it and obviously either team could win it, but it feels like Dromid’s time.
Verdict: