Maynooth desperate to keep Naas from seventh heaven
Naas Cathal Dowling gets past Maynooths Eoin Kelliherwhen the sides met in the 2024 SHC final.
With a relentless NAAS pursuing a seventh successive UPMC Kildare Senior Hurling Championship in Sunday’s final at Cedral St Conleth’s Park, RICHARD COMMINS looks ahead to the big game, with opponents MAYNOOTH making a third attempt in four years to dethrone the champions in the decider.
JOHNNY GREVILLE, the Maynooth manager, alluded to it after the semi-final win over Éire Óg Corra Choill. Naas had to lose a couple of finals before they found the code to winning them. The Westmeath man is right of course, even if there’s some straw-clinging going on there.
The imperious champions were beaten by Celbridge and Ardclough in the 2016 and 2017 deciders and lost out again to the latter in the 2018 semi-final before they found the knack in 2019 with their win over Coill Dubh starting them off on this incredible current run of success.
Even going back further, the county town side’s previous wins in 2001 and 2002 over Coill Dubh came on the back of a disappointing four-point defeat by the same opponents in the 2000 decider.
That repeated the pattern from 1997 when that year’s win over Coill Dubh followed heartbreak in the previous two years, again against the men in red and white.
So, you need to lose a couple to win one it seems, and with Maynooth having suffered at the hands of Naas in 2022 and 2024, Greville, who doubles as Meath’s manager, will be hoping they are now better primed to finally lower the champions’ colours.
The difficulty of course is that Naas are enjoying a ruthless dominance the likes of which hasn’t been seen in Kildare since Clane won nine-in-a-row between 1903 and 1911, though reports are sketchy on how many games those championships even entailed.
Éíre Óg won eight in nine years from 1964 to 1972 before their great rivals of that era Ardclough won eight in eleven from 1973 to 1983. At least they had each other for company during those spells of dominance while Suncroft and St Brigid’s also broke through for shock titles in 1974 and 1978.
Maynooth cannot yet lay claim to involvement in any great rivalry with Naas. Not until they at least get a lot closer on the scoreboard. They lost by eight points having played conservatively in 2022 but were blown away really last year when Naas were seventeen points the better team.
For the sake of the game in the county, though that will be of no concern to Naas, and nor should it be, we could do with a closer game in Sunday’s final, and before long someone is going to have lower Naas’ colours for the game to truly thrive here.
Look at Ballygunner’s reign in Waterford. They are at twelve in a row now, incredibly, with winning margins of 21 and 22 points in the last two finals. That utter domination hasn’t coincided with a golden era for the county team by any means and it must be soul destroying for the likes of Mount Sion, with 35 titles to their name historically.
The statistics, let alone the eye test, this year suggest Naas remain too far ahead of Maynooth. They have outscored their final opponents by 183 points to 150 (see below) in the Championship despite playing in the Winners’ Group while conceding 57 points fewer than the Crom Abú’s who were in the Losers’ section having lost to neighbours Celbridge in the opening round.
That said, Maynooth have found form with big wins over Coill Dubh and Éire Óg Corra Choill, but then when you look at the margins of victory of Naas over the same opposition in their last two games, it’s impossible to go against them.
Naas have the panel to deal with the absences of Richy Hogan, Harry Carroll, Conan Boran, James Burke and, the last day, Cathal Dowling, and while Tom Power has had a big impact and negated the loss through injury of David Qualter for Maynooth, and Cathal McCabe and Ciaran Flanagan together with Oran Byrne and the Forde’s are capable of making life uncomfortable at times for the holders, it would be a massive, massive shock if they could find a way past Tom Mullally’s charges on this occasion.
Prepare for plenty of “Seven-Up” headlines on Sunday night.
Prel Round: NAAS 0-22 Coill Dubh 1-10.
Group A: NAAS 5-28 Confey 0-7.
Group A: NAAS 3-18 Celbridge 1-15.
Group A: NAAS 7-21 Éire Óg Corra Choill 0-14.
Semi Final: NAAS 5-18 Coill Dubh 0-7.
Total Scored: 25-107 (183). Total Conceded: 2-53 (59).
Prel Round: Celbridge 3-23 MAYNOOTH 4-16.
Group B: MAYNOOTH 3-25 Moorefield 0-14.
Group B: MAYNOOTH 4-25 Ardclough 4-22.
Group B: MAYNOOTH 2-23 Coill Dubh 2-8.
Semi Final: MAYNOOTH 2-26 Éire Óg Corra Choill 2-16.
Total Scored: 15-115 (150) Total Conceded: 11-83 (116).
Winners: 1951, 1952, 1994, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2019, 2020, 2021,2022, 2023, 2024 (12).
Runners-Up: 1908, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2016, 2017 (9).
Winners: 1891, 1896, 1913, 1924, 1937, 1939 (6).
Runners-Up: 1888, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1938, 1943, 2022, 2024 (9)
(courtesy Really Unofficial Kildare Fans Page)
NAAS: Jack Sheridan 7-35 (56), 5-4 (19) from play.
MAYNOOTH: Tom Power 1-30 (33), 1-10 (13) from play.
