Divisional and club demands a worry for Duhallow

The concern for the Duhallow footballers should not be that tomorrow’s showpiece is their fourth game in 21 days. The concern should be that this fourth game in the space of three weeks is coming at the end of a busy three months where players have been attempting to satisfy club and divisional demands.

Let’s begin with the five Kanturk men — John and Lorcán McLoughlin, Lorcán O’Neill, and Aidan and Paul Walsh — on the Duhallow team.

All are dual players and so have been splitting themselves between three teams since the club championships resumed in early August. Also, Lorcán McLoughlin and Aidan Walsh spent the summer with the Cork hurlers and footballers, respectively, so weren’t afforded the lightened schedules commonplace to club players when the All-Ireland championships are in full-flow.

Since the beginning of September, the Kanturk quintet have played championship on all weekends bar one, making tomorrow their eighth weekend in the last nine to step inside the whitewash.

In addition, it is not as if any of the five are coming off the bench in the guise of an impact substitution, they’re starters on the Kanturk senior hurling team, starters on the Kanturk premier intermediate football team and, as mentioned, first-team regulars for Duhallow.

Knocknagree, no more than Kanturk, will be well represented come 3.30pm at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. The 2018 All- Ireland junior football champions had four starters for the opening and closing instalments of the semi-final trilogy, with that number rising to five for the drawn replay.

Patrick Doyle is between the sticks, Keelan Buckley occupies the number six shirt, with Fintan O’Connor and Eoghan McSweeney taking up position in the opposition half of the field. Anthony O’Connor captains the side, but, given he has been in and out of the team, there’s no guarantee he’ll march behind the band.

The Knocknagree lads haven’t been as busy as their Kanturk neighbours, with just two club championship games in August, before exiting at the quarter-final juncture of the intermediate championship. Of the last nine weekends, they’ve kicked ball for six.

Anthony O’Connor throws into the mix how both clubs have been on the go since early in 2017, such was the lengthy runs they embarked on late last year.

“It’s been a long two years for Knocknagree and Kanturk players, culminating with those All-Ireland finals wins in Croke Park.

“Maybe not the best intermediate campaign for Knocknagree, but it gave us the opportunity to focus with Duhallow and that’s rewarded on reaching a county final. Being a division, the five games over the past number of weeks has suited us, bringing on our work-rate leaps and bounds.”

On the weekend of their round-three clash with St Nick’s, Kevin Crowley and Michael Vaughan of Millstreet played two games in the space of 24 hours. Newmarket’s Bart Daly did the same later in the month.

Arguably the busiest of the lot has been Boherbue sharpshooter Jerry O’Connor. With the Duhallow junior football decider requiring a replay, as did Boherbue’s recent county quarter-final against Kilmacabea, not to mention the games against Castlehaven, O’Connor has started eight championship games and come on in a ninth since September 1.

In a 14-day period from October 6 to 20, O’Connor was involved in five championship fixtures.

On Saturday, October 6, he notched 1-7 as Boherbue drew with Kilmacabea. The following afternoon, he lasted 42 minutes in the first stalemate against Castlehaven. Six minutes of the replay was all he saw, having the day before kicked five points as his club fell to the West Cork champions in the replayed quarter-final.

Last weekend, he was joint top-scorer with his namesake Donncha, both men contributing 1-3.

The latter was Duhallow’s chief contributor when last the division appeared in a county final. That was 2012, Castlehaven taking the verdict with a point to spare.

“There was a terrific effort put in in 2012,” the 37-year old told The Corkman this week. “Many of those players from 2012 have moved on. It’s up to the current squad to play and perform to make up for that disappointment.

“Look at the club success in Duhallow, those teams know what’s involved to win silverware at the highest level. The onus is on us to repeat that success, but it’ll take an almighty effort to get past St Finbarr’s.”