Cork previews: Ballincollig must hit stride, Newcestown have enough to edge Carrigaline
Ballincollig's Luke Fahy pulls away from Adam Cantwell of Douglas during the Senior Football Championship match in Ballygarvan. Pic: Howard Crowdy
Who can lift themselves off the floor to begin to even find the necessary performance? Valley Rovers, card-carrying Premier Senior members since 2015, are coming in off a Premier Intermediate hurling quarter-final defeat last weekend. As for Rosscarbery, are they still reeling from the 14-point crushing by Clon? How much will surviving this fixture 12 months ago stand to Seamus Hayes’ Carbery Rangers side? Can they extend their latest top-flight stay to a 21st season? A lot of questions there. The answers will present themselves from 5pm.
Verdict: Carbery Rangers
Has the potential to be the game of the weekend. Two teams with strong designs on Premier Senior status. Having made his return from injury - off the bench - in the draw with Newmarket, Kanturk’s Ryan Walsh is poised for more substantial involvement here. Knocknagree, for whom Anthony O’Connor and Eoghan McSweeney are ever-dependable up front, are chasing a fourth consecutive Senior A semi-final appearance.
Verdict: Knocknagree
A point separated them, in O’Donovan Rossa’s favour, in the opening round last year. The Skibb lads were three points the better team the year previous. O’Donovan Rossa were utterly competitive in all three group outings this campaign, Fermoy were not.
Verdict: O'Donovan Rossa
Kiskeam’s bid for an immediate return to the second tier faces the stiffest examination since relegation last year. John Corkery, Luke Casey, Evan O’Sullivan, and Matthew Bradley are the driving figures in an Aghabullogue side wanting to redress for last year’s third-tier final defeat.
Verdict: Aghabullogue
Both sides progressed off the back of only one group win. But was Aghada’s the more difficult group, containing as it did recent finalists Aghabullogue and Bantry, not to mind Nemo’s second team? The mix of Diarmuid Phelan, Jamie O’Hanlon, and 45-year-old Pearse O’Neill can keep them moving.
Verdict: Aghada
Ilen Rovers are attempting to win three championship matches in the one season for the first time since 2008. The household Mitchelstown names of Sean Walsh and Cathail O’Mahony are attempting to prevent such.
Verdict: Mitchelstown
Chris Moynihan, Seán Kelleher, Mark Cronin, Eddie Goggin, and Keith O’Driscoll will power the Gabriel Rangers push. They are determined for their 2025 season to at least reach the semi-final juncture where they exited last year.
Verdict: Gabriel Rangers
A third relegation play-off in four seasons for struggling St Vincent’s. They didn’t survive the first one, that the 2022 Premier Intermediate trapdoor contest. They did manage to hang on in this grade last year. Can they do so again?
Verdict: Dromtarriffe
Beaten finalists last year, Canovee’s redemption road won’t end here.
Verdict: Canovee
Diarmuid Kearney will be looked upon as Cobh chase a second semi-final involvement in three seasons.
Verdict: Cobh
Millstreet were last a divisional junior team in 2014, 2007 for Ballydesmond. That sixth step of the Cork football ladder is where one of them is headed.
Verdict: Millstreet
Carrigaline are bidding to clinch a first-ever top-flight semi-final. Beyond Brian O’Driscoll’s central importance, Jack McCarthy, Éanna Desmond, and the Coakley brothers are other key actors in a return season to the Premier Senior ranks that has exceeded external expectations. Bar the opening round hurling no-show against Charleville, Newcestown’s dual men have not put a foot wrong. Gearóid O’Donovan is returning home from the Middle East most weekends to execute man-marking jobs on any number of marquee names. David Buckley and Tadhg Twomey are in red-hot scoring form.
Verdict: Newcestown
A sixth consecutive knockout meeting. Given the extent to which the Haven stretched the Barrs' defence the last two years in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, might Clonakilty's tighter confines suit the traveling city men? Then again, their championship record at the venue is not at all good. The Haven maintain the defeat to Newcestown was a one-off. To prove that theory, they need to rediscover the fluency in attack that was the winning of the 2023 and ‘24 semi-finals. The Barrs attack, meanwhile, as was the case for their hurlers last week, is considerably strengthened by Brian Hayes’ return.
Verdict: Castlehaven
Duhallow feeder clubs Millstreet, Ballydesmond, Cullen, Dromtarriffe, and Kiskeam are all in action a day before this quarter-final. Three of them are in relegation play-off action. As we saw last week from the Castlemartyr contingent feeding into the Imokilly hurling set-up, even if survival is achieved, those fixtures leave very little in the tank. Ballincollig have yet to hit their stride in this championship. Victory is the chief priority here, but they’ll know the importance of bringing form into a semi-final meeting against a member of the big three.
Verdict: Ballincollig
Bishopstown were far too open when leaking three goals to Beal Atha’n Ghaorthaidh last time out. The city club is in dire need of a positive result after yet another hurling relegation last weekend. Out the road in Ovens, sentiment does not feature. They want an immediate return to the top table. Their two goalkeepers operating at either end of the field, Chris Kelly and Dylan Foley, have been two of their key scoring contributors.
Verdict: Éire Óg
Two teams who have finished bottom of their respective group for the past three years. This is Macroom’s third consecutive relegation play-off. Bandon have somehow escaped this fixture until now.
Verdict: Bandon
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