Cork Premier SFC preview: In-form Blues can shade southside showdown

The Barr's are attempting to beat Nemo in the decider for the first time. 

FINAL PREPARATIONS: St Finbarrs Premier senior football manager Brian Roche. Pic: Howard Crowdy

Shades of 2022. The Barrs are again the form-team and favourites. Titles bestowed on them because of their six-goal quarter-final spectacular against champions Castlehaven.

The difference to 2022 is that the Barrs’ campaign-lifting win over the Haven came a round earlier on this occasion, with the mood and expectations out in Togher subsequently tempered by a creative-lite opening half against Ballincollig.

Podsie O’Mahony’s side provided a solid template in that opening half of how to stymie the Barrs’ counter-attacking game. It was only when those in green began to drop point attempts short and cough up cheap turnovers early in the second half that the Barrs were able to build, at pace, out from the back.

In the final clashes of 2017 and '22, Nemo were clinical in building leads 11- and 10-points strong. And while their opponents closed to within a score in both instances, Brian Roche’s Barrs side, containing as is likely with six players - Darragh Newman, Ciarán Doolan, William Buckley, Conor Dennehy, John Wigginton-Barrett, and Ricky Barrett - starting their first county final in either code, must live rather than languish with the neighbours early doors.

The Barrs got their defensive matchups wrong three years ago. Who is handed the Mark Cronin brief? Nemo got their matchups spot on three years ago. But alterations since make those matchups difficult to replicate.

It is nearly impossible to envisage Kevin O’Donovan leaving his half-forward berth to go back and pick up Steven Sherlock. Similarly impractical to remove Briain Murphy from midfield and detail him at full-back on Brian Hayes.

As outstanding as Ian Maguire has been in the middle-third battleground, he cannot compete alone with the Nemo triumvirate of Murphy, Barry Cripps, and Alan O’Donovan. Should Ethan Twomey, Dennehy, Buckley, and a drifting Hayes assert in this department, it can be a first-ever final win for the Barrs over Nemo at the sixth attempt.

Verdict: St Finbarr’s