The father and son pairing driving Kildare club's title tilt

It’s not often you see a father and son get the opportunity to play alongside one another in club championship football, but the partnership of Jason and Jay O’Brien jnr has had a telling impact on the fortunes of Round Towers this season.

The combination of the two in the full forward line has proven a key factor in the Kildare Town side putting together an unbeaten run to the quarter finals of The 2024 Auld Shebeen Athy Intermediate Football Championship this season.

And, hoping to go at least one-step better on their exit from the last eight at the hands of Castledermot in 2023, Mark Scanlon’s side are gearing up to take on Rathangan this Friday, with the O’Briens likely to play a major role yet again.

Corner forward, Jay only made the step-up to the Towers senior team last season, but injury to his father, Jason that year, limited their time together on the pitch.

All that has changed in 2024, with both being afforded the opportunity to demonstrate that unique understanding they possess, and one that has seen them manage to hold down starting roles in a very competitive Towers line-up.

Indeed, by the close of the group stages in this season’s championship, 19-year-old Jay was the joint second highest scorer in the competition, just seven points off Ballyteague’s Jimmy Hyland.

What’s more, he held the outright second spot in scores from play, with Jason sharing 16th place on that same list.

“Jay is doing very well,” Jason said of his son. 

“Throughout the years he would have been a good player. He would have played Kildare underage and he was unlucky not to make the Under 20s last year, but I think that just spurred him on to do even more in the club.

“It’s great for the two of us to be playing so close inside the line. We make runs off each other, we’d be on the same wavelength, but he’d definitely be a much better player that I would be.

“I’m probably learning more from him now, because he’s just so accurate with the left foot.

“But throughout the years, I would have been teaching him little tips and tricks, I would have been going to all his matches, and I would have been showing him how to shake a defender.

“Now to be on the same pitch and seeing him in action like that, I do be thinking, ‘how did he do that?’ 

“He’s able to do certain stuff that I would probably only dream of being able to do, but it’s great to see him do it,” smiled the 36-year-old full forward.

Jay too is very appreciative of the opportunity he has been given to play alongside his father and certainly values the harmony the two possess at the fore front of the Towers attack.

“I grew up around the team, I was always at their training sessions,” he recalled.

“I always wanted to play with my dad. I was always kicking ball with him and now we’re actually on the same team together.

“I’ll know where he wants the ball, when he wants it, how he wants it, which side he prefers. I just know him inside out and he knows me inside out. It’s a different type of connection on the pitch,” he said.

It is a connection that has worked well for Towers, who, while having just missed out on promotion to Division One earlier this year, have not yet taken a false step in the Intermediate Championship.

An emphatic 20-point demolition of Ballymore Eustace in the preliminary round was followed by a clean sweep of three wins in Group B where they saw off Ballyteague, St Kevin’s and last season’s nemesis, Castledermot to set up a date with Rathangan in the quarter finals.

While Towers manager, Mark Scanlon certainly appreciates the part the O’Briens have played in that impressive run, he was quick to underscore the level of competition that exists throughout the entire squad.

“The impact that the lads are having has been great so far,” he told The Kildare Nationalist.

“We have a very competitive forward line this season and they’re holding their place there.

“We’re looking for other lads to keep pushing, but, at the moment, their form is good and, in fairness to the two lads, they’ve put a lot of work into themselves over the years to get themselves to this point.

“But they’ll tell you quicker than I will that none of it matters unless they perform the next day.

“They’re two very ambitious lads who are at different ends of their careers and they’re trying to squeeze as much out of themselves as they can.

“Young Jay, along with Ben Ryan, Max Cosgrove and Padraig Daly, would have started in the Towers nursery and they’ve been breaking through over the last couple of years. From a club and a family point of view, we’d be very proud of that,” he said.

While pleased to have seen his side earn a two-week break by topping their championship pool, Scanlon is also looking to keep his players on their toes heading into this Friday’s quarter-final clash against Rathangan.

“The two-week break is a definite advantage in terms of being able to get injuries cleared up and get lads recovering after the last game,” he said.

“On the other side of it, Rathangan will probably be looking at it in that they’ll have a bit of momentum heading into the quarter finals, so you have to be cautious.

“But our lads are itching to put in another performance and once we do that, we’ll see where that leaves us.

“Intermediate is very tricky. You have the likes of Sallins, Caragh, Leixlip and then there’ll be a couple of bolters out of the blue as well.

“It’s very competitive, so we’ll just keep our eye on the next challenge and throw ourselves into that performance,” he insisted.