SEMI-FINALS are for winning. By how much or how pretty the victory is, it’s irrelevant. Nobody remembers losing semi-finalists. In the final anything can happen, but it’s all about getting there and putting yourself in the position to achieve the ultimate.
In the premier senior football championship on Sunday, Nemo Rangers take on Duhallow at 2pm before the Barrs and Castlehaven go toe to toe at 4pm, for the fourth year running at this stage. The count stands 2-1 to the Barrs with the ’20 and ’21 encounters being decided after penalties.
The 2021 semi-final between the two was a shootout, finishing 3-16 apiece after extra time with John Kerins, the St Finbarr’s goalkeeper, saving a penalty and converting the winner to put the Togher men through to the final and the subsequent lifting of Andy Scannell by captain Ian Maguire. In that game Steven Sherlock scored 2-10 and Brian Hurley scored 2-9. Last season was another shootout, finishing on a scoreline of 2-17 to 1-16. The Togher men scored 2-16 from play that day. In fact, Sherlock has racked up 4-25 in the last three meetings of these sides. Hurley isn’t doing too bad either with 2-21. Therein lies the key to success for Paul O’Keeffe or James McCarthy – who is going to come up with the best plan to curtail the opposition's top marksman?
The Barrs played their last group game without Sherlock and won at their ease against Douglas to top the group and take the semi-final spot as best group winners. Cillian Myers-Murray topped their scoring chart that day with six points but the more interesting point was that they had three new forwards from the sextet that lost the final to Nemo last year. Michael O’Donovan, a Limerick senior footballer, has joined them and lined out at 11. Reese McInerney is the latest Down acquisition and John Wigginton-Barrett, a young up-and-coming hot shot lined out in the corner. The Barrs squad was strong last year but it looks even stronger this year despite Ben O’Connor’s move to Munster.
The Barrs don’t seem to adapt their game-plan for anyone. They identify the opposition's top forwards, man-mark them, go man-to-man everywhere else and rely on their huge physicality and football ability to bring them home. Last year, Sam Ryan marked Michael Hurley, while Brian Hurley lined out at centre forward and was picked up by Jamie Burns. Burns did his job, limiting Hurley to three from play. That day, the Barrs should have been out the gap at half time, having butchered four great goal-scoring opportunities in that first half.
The Haven haven’t come out the right side of the last two classic semi-finals. Will there be a change of tactic from the West Cork team? Maybe Castlehaven need to play a bit less football and keep it a bit tighter at the back? They were awesome in the first half against Ballincollig in the quarter-final but showed their more vulnerable side in defence in the second half when Ballincollig had three goal-scoring opportunities before raising an actual green flag. Jack O’Neill was deployed on Cian Kiely and did his job. Thomas O’Mahony picked up Liam O’Connell and did a good job and another young guy, Sean Browne, was also effective at wing forward. The point I’m getting at here is Castlehaven deployed some of their lesser lights on the opposition's top players, releasing their own big-name stars from that responsibility and allowing them to have more influence on the game. All three of these fellas – O’Neill, O’Mahony and Browne – are big, strong, athletic players. It will be interesting to see if they will be given similar roles against the Barrs. Haven boss James McCarthy openly said afterwards that that was the best half of football they have played in three or four years but sorting out those defensive frailties will be his priority before Sunday.
Can Castlehaven manager James McCarthy mastermind a win against St Finbarr's?
It was hard to judge Nemo Rangers against Clon trying to play football in what could only be described as a marsh in Bandon, but they breezed through their group and are now back in the familiar territory of Páirc Uí Chaoimh where they will face Duhallow in the opener this Sunday. They only scored five points that day in Bandon but when they hit the wide-open plains of headquarters, they are a different animal. They have the quality forwards in Luke Connolly, Paul Kerrigan and Mark Cronin and that was the key element in regaining their county title last season.
Kudos to Jer O’Sullivan and his Duhallow team on their delayed quarter-final victory over Douglas last Sunday evening to qualify for a joust with Nemo in the semi. Having lost clubs like Newmarket, Kanturk and Knocknagree to senior football I felt it might be a while before they would be a force again. But having seen them first hand when they defeated Carbery in the semi-final of the Tadgh Crowley Cup they still possess a lot of quality. Darragh Cashman and Shane Hickey, at five and seven, carry a lot of running ability; both got goals in their ten-point demolition of Douglas. They have good forwards in Mikey McAuliffe, Luke Murphy and the evergreen Donncha O’Connor. The worry for their management team will be fatigue as a lot of their players will be playing junior and intermediate championships in the previous two days.
A rerun of last year's county final is my call, with the Barrs to get retribution for Nemo’s hijacking of the double last season.
