Timahoe lead the whole way, and by about 5 points with 5 mins to go, but like the semi final, O’Dempseys got a penalty in the dying stages, Conor Meredith slotted it, they fired over a few points, and won it by one. Quigley got booed throughout. Second final in a row for TImahoe to lose in the Intermediate, given they have county players in Quigley, Damien and Ruairi O Connor, Eoin Culliton and Ciaran Lennon, they’re making hard work of getting back to senior. O’Dempseys came down last year, and in truth were way in front all year of most they came across. Portlaoise Intermediates nearly had them in the semi final though, and it took a penalty with last kick of the game from Meredith to get over them. They’ll give Leinster a good rattle, some good players in Peter O Leary, Robbie Kehoe, Conor Meredith, Michal Finlay and Stephen O leary to name just a few.
Good stuff. I presume that is Meredith as opposed to Mortimer
Oops, yep, thats it Meredith.
The Club Championship is only half dressed without Johnny Hanratty and Co.
Tank filled on Friday 
The lady doth protest too much…
Two mild shocks in the Kerry football at the weekend, Kenmare district beat Stacks and Rathmore beat Mid Kerry.
In a great example of the peculiarities of Kerry club, the Kenmare district team has it’s two chief contributors Kenmare & Templenoe playing in the intermediate club final. Serious workload ahead for those lads in the next few weeks.
Semis are Crokes v Dingle & Rathmore v Kenmare.
Is that the County Intermediate? Fair going for Templenoe to be challenging for that after going all the way to Croke Park in the Junior this year. I read that they have something like 20 players, only about a handful of that living at home, over a dozen away in college.
Wouldn’t be surprised, it’s only a dot on the map. Don’t think there’s anything bar a pub & a church there. Real football country though. There doesn’t seem a whole pile of difference in the standard of the junior & intermediate down there, junior teams coming up can fair quite well. Kenmare for example were junior themselves till 2014. You won’t last long at intermediate as an average team either. I think that’s the real strength of the Kerry championship, the teams at the top are constantly changing.
Thats a great thing to have. Regeneration helps keep it fresh, as well as offering an incentive to Clubs looking to push forward. While we’re stuck with a stagnant 16 team Championship, and fuck all to be got out of it for most clubs apart from trying to avoid the drain of relegation, while fighting it out for the honour of being the next sacrificial county final lamb for Portlaoise.
Did you say the Portlaoise intermediates nearly got to the final as well?
That’s a sick level of dominance. The club needs to be split in two to save Laois football from itself.
Is there a Kenmare club and a Kenmare District amalgamation? I don’t know if having strong intermediate teams amalgamating to play against senior clubs is entirely fair on the senior clubs.
Aye, Portlaoise played 3 games in 3 days a few weeks back. Their Juniors lost the semi final by 6 or 7 points. Their Intermediates lost their semi final to a last minute penalty by O’Dempseys, and the Seniors were held by St Josephs in the Senior Quarter Final.
The Junior and Intermediate teams had lads who had played in Leinster Club Finals, and could easily get a place on any Senior team in the county. However in Portlaoise, they can drop down the grades once they hit 30 and want to ease off a bit. In any other Club, they’d be cajoled into hanging around into their 40’s. Mick Lawlor played in a County Final at 43 last year. Stradbally will have a 40 year old lining out in a few weeks times. Arles Kilcruise had two 40 year olds in the quarter final. Portlaoise have a senior panel full of 25-30 year olds.
I’ve already made mention of their recent underage drive. They haven’t won a Minor or U21 in a few years, and are being beaten in the lower underage grades. So they’ve actively gone recruiting, both in the schools and neighbouring Clubs. Split them up? They would canibalise every club in their environs if they could.
Doesnt make much difference in Cork really. The divisional sides rarely enough pull it together. If the carrot if an AI club final was there for divisions might make a bit of a difference.
Ya Kenmare and district is divisional they’ve only 4 clubs though so are the smallest division. It’s tradition in Kerry so they accept it, but it’d be very hard to introduce it to another county, as you say it seems massively unfair on a club to be done in by a divisional team. But they have their just clubs championship as well which they take equally seriously and the league which is massive as well.
The well run league system helps smaller clubs. I think Templenoe are Division 1 while some senior clubs may be playing in divisions beneath that. The Kerry league offers loads of top quality games and compliments the knock out nature of championship
Kerry is different. For example…
Glenbeigh are division 1 in the Kerry league but have lost the last two junior county finals. I think they are in the junior semi again this year.
The minor & u21 championships also feature the combination teams, but I dont know quite how they work that.
There is a joke that it is a bad year if a kerry club player does not make some sort of a final.
The group teams are listed here
Sorry for the delayed response, I’m currently in transit after a wonderful wedding in Spain.
Kilcar will be favourites. They’re renowned for being the most skilfull team with the best players and are equally as infamous for having no bottle when they’re in a serious battle.
I think they’ll win Donegal but a lack of fight and the victory hangover will see them exit Ulster early enough.