Hotel Kilmore Cavan Senior Football Championship final: Kingscourt Stars v Castlerahan (tomorrow, Kingspan Breffni Park, 3pm)
It’s been a topsy-turvy Cavan SFC this year and the bookies’ odds for tomorrow’s decider says as much.
It seems that the turf accountants don’t really trust either Kingscourt Stars or Castlerahan to do the business – making the Stars slight favourites at even money and Castlerahan at 11/10 to break their duck in the competition.
When they beat defending champions Cavan Gaels in the quarter-finals a few weeks ago, all-belonging to Kingscourt Stars were told this year’s Cavan SFC was theirs to lose. But having smothered the ambitions of a Gaels team containing Seanie Johnston and Martin Dunne in the full-forward line, the Stars laboured to quell the ire of raging Killygarry in the semis.
Earlier losses to Mullahoran and Ramor (in the back door) and a draw with Ramor Utd gave the bookies further food for thought.
Tomorrow’s match favourites beat the Gaels to win the title in 2010, but that campaign was only half as long as this year’s with Niall Lynch’s side set to play their 10th match of the current campaign
“It really has been a long campaign,” says Lynch.
“To be totally honest you try and forget about the matches that you lost but people will forget that we were seven or eight points up against Ramor. I remember being four points up against Mullahoran so even on the days we lost there were good points (to our game).”
Lynch will be coming up against some very familiar faces in the final. In 2007 he coached a raft of current Castlerahan seniors when his former employer Virginia College annexed the All-Ireland VEC Secondary Schools title.
The Cuchullain’s clubman subsequently took up a vice-principal post in Belturbet but he has great respect for the talents of his former pupils
“I would have coached at least eight of those (Castlerahan) players through different teams in Virginia and they do bring unbelievable speed to their game,” he added.
“So what Castlerahan have is a lot of very good footballers and obviously they’ll have the hunger.
“They’ll bring hunger and speed and they’ve definitely got an ability to score. But if we put together a 60 minute performance, we’ll be very, very hard to beat in the final.”
Lynch and co. should have the edge in experience though. Most of the Stars who’ll seek to shine tomorrow featured in the county final victory of five years ago.
Castlerahan have never won the Cavan SFC title and they are viewed as more of a team-in-the-making than a mature team.
But the Ballyjamesduff-based side have arguably been the more impressive in the championship to date, playing just five games to make the final with the likes of county stars Cian Mackey and Ronan Flanagan pulling the strings for the most part.
Over half of the current Castlerahan team did appear in the 2011 SFC final when they were overrun by Cavan Gaels but Kingscourt’s greater division of labour up front should see them edge it.
