Keane to succeed

CORK captain Carthach Keane has his own motivation to succeed in this afternoon’s All-Ireland JFC final against Kildare in Thurles, having had his dreams of success at this level wrecked in 2009 by injury.

Keane was a key component of the Cork side that swept to Munster junior honours in 2009 yet two days before their All-Ireland semi-final tie with Louth that year, his season crashed to a halt when he suffered a serious knee injury while lining out for divisional side Carbery in the county SFC.

“I destroyed my knee basically in a match down in Bandon against Nemo Rangers,” he said.

“I tore the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments, and damaged my medial ligament as well. It was a huge disappointment to miss out on the junior All-Ireland win against Roscommon that year after that. It was a long road back and it took me a full year to get right. So it’s a huge thing personally to be in the All-Ireland this year.”

The abolition of the intercounty junior football grade, and its intermediate hurling counterpart, was proposed earlier this year but Keane is adamant the grade is hugely beneficial and highlights Cork’s excellent recent record at producing senior players from their junior outfits.

“You only have to see the quality of players that have come through Cork junior sides to the senior team that won the All-Ireland last year to see the worth of it. Donncha O’Connor, [Daniel] Goulding, Alan O’Connor, Ciarán Sheehan and Aidan Walsh would all have played at some point.

“It’s a good stepping stone to get onto the senior side. As well as that, coming from the minor and U21 grades, not everyone can break onto the senior stage. The chance to represent your county and play in an All-Ireland final is a huge motivation for lads then.”

Cork’s progress to this year’s final was secured when they defeated Sligo in the semi-final a fortnight ago. The staging of that game in Croke Park was an added bonus as the match had originally been fixed for Tullamore.

“It was a brilliant experience for us to play in Croke Park as you don’t really expect junior games to be played there. We’d been preparing to play in Tullamore and then when the word came through about Croke Park, there was a big anticipation in our panel about the game. I hadn’t played there since minor in 2004 and you don’t know if you’ll get many opportunities like that again, so we wanted to grasp it and get the victory.

“Kildare are going to be a tough challenge in the final now. We played them at the start of the year in a challenge in Fermoy and they beat us convincingly. They got through us for a good few goals that day and that’s something we’ll have to prevent if we’re going to win.”

CORK JF: T O’Connor; E Wiseman, E O’Mahony, K Harrington; S Kiely, R O’Sullivan, AJ O’Connor; A O’Sullivan, D O’Donovan; T Clancy, C Keane, B Coughlan; K Hallissey, A O’Brien, L Shorten.