Nothing to fear for Keith Moynihan’s Mallow

The Annascaul man will send his side out to face Douglas this weekend in front of the Examiner Sport cameras. 

TUSSLE: Mallow's Shane Merritt tries to escape the attention of William Hurley, Valley Rovers. Pic: Jim Coughlan.

December is a month on a ledge. It’s a time for looking back over the year about to pass and the point at which thoughts turn to what’s around the next corner and Keith Moynihan had a foot planted firmly in both camps at the end of last year.

Moynihan’s Mallow side had just overcome St Michael’s in the final of the Cork Senior A football final, six months after losing the delayed 2020 decider to Éire Óg, and the giddiness at their path back to the top tier was tempered with a layer of realism.

The Annascaul man spoke that day about how his side was about to trade their status as sixth-class chiefs for first-year cubs in a Senior Premier grade that would be alive with danger but they have adapted brilliantly to their new surrounds.

Pitched into the most open of the groups, they have already accounted for Ballincollig and Valley Rovers. Add Douglas to that list tomorrow and the Avondhu side could even leapfrog the last eight and land directly into the semi-finals.

That’s a quantum leap for a newbie that many expected to struggle but Mallow have been full value for both wins so far and Moynihan certainly didn’t approach these initial championship stages with the view that they were some sort of Mission Impossible.

“Realistically you don’t look beyond the group phase,” he explains. “I would have been quite confident in ourselves that we would be in with a shout of coming out of the group. The teams that were in the group were quite even and we had played them in the league over the last few seasons. We knew what we were dealing with, with Ballincollig and Valley Rovers in particular.

“We probably haven’t played Douglas at a competitive level in league for a long time so that is a bit more of an unknown, but with the other two we knew what we were dealing with. A lot of people at the start would have put St Finbarr’s, Nemo Rangers and Castlehaven down as the favourites and they weren’t in our group, so that surely had to be something that was a positive.” 

Moynihan is in his fifth season with the club’s seniors who fell back down into Senior A with the regrading done in 2019. It is a group he described as a “joy to work with” in a Q&A posted on Twitter last year and there were other glimpses of his beliefs and background scattered through the short interview.

Best career advice: never give up, play to the final whistle. Most important skill: kick passing. Being able to kick pass off both feet on the move. Best player you played with: Paul Galvin. A skilful, hard-working, intelligent footballer. There was admiration for David Clifford too but that’s hardly unusual.

Mallow have displayed many of those traits. They have showcased their smarts, skills and an appetite for work in claiming the opening two wins and Moynihan’s initial assertion, when asked, that their success owes an inordinate amount to simply scoring at the right times eventually gives way to something deeper.

“It is all built on hard work. If you went up in ’17, if you were managing to reach a county final in ’20 and then come back six months later, in ’21, it’s built on the lads being committed to the thing, working hard and believing in their own ability. Then all that energy and effort is put into the first game against Ballincollig.

“That’s where we had to perform. It was a tough game, the weather conditions were poor, and I’d say it wasn’t a classic for the people watching it but, at the same time, for us it was a game that went the right way for us and it gave us the momentum three weeks later to push on and play Valleys.” 

Even that leaves the picture unpainted.

Mallow have lost Michael O’Rourke to Australia this year, Aaron Cahill has retired, while Aidan Bolster and Eoin Kelleher are long-term injury absentees. Five more have only just returned from wither J1s or other trips and having missed the first two games but these aren’t unique problems in Cork or around the country.

Mallow haven’t succeeded so far just because of their journey, their application and their hunger. And it isn’t just good coaching and sound structures that have given them this shot against a Douglas side that needs a win themselves and a little help from elsewhere this weekend.

“Maybe we are a bit fresher to it because it is our first year up and there is a bit of momentum to it,” Moynihan suggests. “You would imagine that is something we are feeding off. There is also quality to the group. The manner of the victory in the two games was a bit different so there has to be some quality there as well.”