Business end of Kildare football championships this weekend
Darragh Kirwan of Naas and Kevin Feely of Athy are key players for their teams ahead of this weekend's Joe Mallon Motors Senior Football Championship semi-finals Photo: Sean Brilly
This weekend sees the two primary grades in the men’s adult football championships reach the penultimate stage and while it’s a familiar looking last four in the Joe Mallon Motors Senior Championship, true to form it’s anything but in the Auld Shebeen Athy Intermediate Championship which was awash with upsets in the last round.
All four games are in Manguard Park and it’s winner on the day with extra time and possibly penalties to decide matters in the event of draws. `=
Two intriguing games in their own right. At the time of writing, four-in-a-row chasing Naas are 4/9 favourites to retain their title with last year’s runners up Celbridge at 7/2 and Athy and Sarsfields the 8/1 outsiders.
Certainly, form to date suggests Naas and Celbridge deserve their status as warm favourites. Both have won all five of their games to date to put them on course for another final meeting.
Incredibly, Celbridge are appearing in their eleventh successive semi-final but of course the unavoidable statistic that goes along with that is that they’ve lost eight of those previous ten and came up short on both occasions they reached the final, the notorious loss to thirteen-man Moorefield in 2017 and last year’s agonising two-point reversal to Naas in Netwatch Cullen Park.
This is exactly the sort of semi-final that has tripped them up in the past, no matter how good their form beforehand. Indeed, Sarsfields triumphed on each of the three occasions they met at this stage over the last decade, although Celbridge will take comfort from the quarter final win over the Newbridge side last year.
Celbridge have cantered through the campaign to date and there’s lots to admire about a team anchored at centre-back by Fergal Conway, playing some of the best football of his career, aided by the youthful legs of Dean O’Donoghue and Niall O’Regan and with Aaron Browne delivering on his undoubted potential up front.
They’re still missing Kevin Flynn and his unlikely-looking return from hamstring trouble would be a boost, but to counter that they had first starts from Kevin O’Callaghan and Paddy Brophy in recent weeks and their panel looks as good as that of Naas on paper.
Sarsfields? I thought Moorefield were unlucky not to come away with something from the quarter final. Shane Doyle’s goal proved the turning point just at a time Sarsfields seemed to be running out of ideas and getting frustrated.
Sash have enough good players to make this a close affair but they’ll need to significantly up their game to get over the line.
Sunday’s semi-final could be a humdinger, and I wouldn’t go along with those that say Naas are unbeatable. The nature of football is such that a team can get caught more easily than in hurling and Athy have shown an attacking intent and a good range of scoring power that can trouble Naas IF they decide to unleash it.
The danger with that of course is that Naas are now masterful at soaking up pressure and hitting on the break with the likes of Paddy McDermott and Tom Browne adept at setting up scores coming from deeper. Alex Beirne is in the form of his life and Neil Aherne impressed too the last day.
I do think there’s an awful lot more to come from Naas. They are chugging along somewhat (ignore the final burst against a demoralised Johnstownbridge) and that can be a dangerous game. At times you wonder do they have too many players to choose from (seeing the likes of Kevin Cummins and Brian Kane on the bench).
Athy will need to tighten up a lot at the back to survive this one and whether that in turn impinges on their attacking capabilities remains to be seen. This could be close and is by no means a foregone conclusion.
If you are a gambler and bet against this writer’s Intermediate predictions this year, spend your winnings wisely. Sallins and Round Towers were the latest favourites to crash and burn in an incredible sequence of quarter final results where both Caragh and Milltown over-turned preliminary round defeats (to Sallins and St Kevin’s) and Rathangan pulled off a famous goal-laden coup against neighbours Towers.
Leixlip beating Ballyteague was probably the most predictable of the last eight results but even there the margin was a surprise. Having won all four of their previous games by two points the men in maroon cut loose with a convincing twelve point win.
Leixlip defended stoutly with Jack Quinn blossoming into a fine defender while they’ve a strong and experienced midfield with Ronan Fitzsimons and Tommy Moolick and in attack Jack Barrett is playing superbly alongside Darren McDermott among others.
It all adds up to a difficult encounter for Kildare and Leinster Junior Champions Milltown, but they have come on in leaps and bounds since losing that Preliminary Round and they will pose a real danger with their blend of youth and experience. I like the way they spread the scores around in attack with six forwards all well capable of taking a score.
Milltown are an up and coming team who could well take this crown in coming years, but they’ll be delighted to see me give the nod to Leixlip this time.
It would be hard to have any confidence in predicting Sunday’s semi-final between Caragh and Rathangan. The former have impressed many times in this competition over the last few years without quite reaching the level of consistency needed to go the whole way.
They have quality dotted around the team, with Ryan Burke and Matthew McNally strong down the middle in defence, Eoghan O’Haire a very capable midfielder/attacker and Darragh Swords a classy operator up front. Kevin Connor’s return from injury was another recent boost and Dan Murray is another dual player giving them plenty of options.
Rathangan have plenty of capably players themselves in goalkeeper Craig Shannon, defender Shane O’Loughlin, the Teahans, Muiris Curtin, Sam Savage and Ben Murphy.
Both sides had to lift their game considerably to get through difficult quarter finals and this will boil down to whichever can retain a consistent level of performance from those wins.
Rathangan went to extra time the last day and it could be the same again here. A narrow vote goes to Caragh to prevail.
