Kildare Junior Championship could provide one of the games of the weekend

It is perhaps a mark of the standard of this year’s Tom Cross Transport Junior Football Championship that Clubber TV have added games from the competition to its schedule this week as part of its arrangement with Kildare GAA. RICHARD COMMINS previews the final round of games in the two groups with plenty still to be decided.

It has been GROUP B that has provided most of the thrills in this year’s championship although the opening round clash of Grangenolvin and Ballymore Eustace produced a game of the highest quality in GROUP A and those two are probably the favourites to contest the final at this stage.

With Grange on six points, Ballymore and Castlemitchell on four and last year’s finalists Kill on two and the top two going into the semi finals and third place making do with a quarter final, the three qualification places are already secure. Even if they beat Grange on Thursday, Kill’s defeats to Ballymore and Castlemitchell mean they cannot overhaul either.

Grange are guaranteed a place in the semi finals so Thursday night’s game doesn’t have much riding on it, but Saturday’s clash of Ballymore and Castlemitchell will decide the second semi-final place in that group.

It’s difficult to judge Ballymore fully, but they seem to have arrested their slide after relegation from Intermediate with good wins over the group’s bottom team Kildangan and, in particular, a 1-23 to 3-5 defeat of Kill last week. They should prevail here too. It is hard to get Castlemitchell’s drubbing by Grange out of the head, but they should give Ballymore a much closer battle. They’ll need to keep tabs on the free-scoring Niall Murphy, though, after his impressive 1-14 haul against Kill.

GROUP B is the veritable Group of Death in the Junior Championship. Only one point separates four teams vying for three spots going into the final round with Rathcoffey and Athgarvan on six points and Robertstown and Cappagh on five after the latter pair’s thrilling draw in the last round.

With all due respect to Ardclough and Ballykelly, both of whose sights will be on the Junior A competition at this stage, along with Kill and Kildangan from Group A, neither of them are expected to trouble Athgarvan and Cappagh, with those two expected to clinch their places in the knockouts on Friday night. Most eyes therefore will be on Cedral St Conleth’s Park where Rathcoffey face Robertstown in a local derby where Rathcoffey could conceivably drop from top of the group into fourth place (and into the A championship to boot) if they were to lose. A similar binary fate awaits Robertstown.

Form guides are difficult here. Rathcoffey have beaten Athgarvan and lost to Cappagh while Robertstown lost to Athgarvan and drew with Cappagh, their only wins coming against the bottom two. They are renowned, doughty opponents though, as evidenced by their last gasp draw with Cappagh in the previous round.

A reminder that if two teams are level on points, the head-to-head result between them determines placings, whereas if three teams or more are level, the scoring difference in games involving those teams only will determine the outcome. Buckle up!