Clonmel clinging to faint promotion hopes

It is the time of year when several clubs will be battling it out for silverware. Meanwhile, the province’s top Junior club, Clonmel, saw their hopes of going up to the Ulster Bank League suffer an serious blow by last weekend’s defeat to Dundalk.

The Louth side now travel to Connemara who have shipped heavy defeats in each of their two games so far and have yet to register a score. The All Ireland Cup Champions should prove far too strong for the Connemara All Blacks and a win will give Dundalk a play-off away to De La Salle Palmerston to gain a place with the Senior clubs.

In the highly unlikely event of an upset in that game, the match in Belfast between Instonians could see the winners take on DLSP in that play-off. Both clubs will be expecting to play for second. With a Junior Cup semi-final coming up with Young Munster, Clonmel may not want to risk any players with any niggling injuries. On the other hand though, they will be eager to prove themselves against one of the other top junior clubs in the country and a win at Instonians would be a great way to end their Round Robin campaign.