AND SO we have our Cork football county finalists. All 10 of them, with as many as half short odds to make it to the decider though there are a couple who’ve come from nowhere to position themselves one hour from promotion and silverware.
Let’s start with the main event. Another Castlehaven-Nemo Premier SFC final. And really, is there anyone surprised with such?
Once Nemo again found themselves on the other side of the knockout draw to the other Big Three members, there was little question of them not coming through. And as for the Haven taking a 3-2 lead in their semi-final relationship with the Barrs, the latter’s four-strong injury list of important defenders meant they were not the force of recent years. Quite literally half their first-choice defence was unavailable.
The Senior A final pairing of Knocknagree and Carrigaline, similarly, can hardly be described as novel. Knocknagree were here two years ago, and given the clean bill of health they are (finally) enjoying this season, not to mind important players temporarily returned home from Oz, they were always going to be in the shake-up.
As for Carrigaline, the fact they wore Premier Senior clothes 12 months ago meant they were a marked outfit coming down. Then Cork senior Brian O’Driscoll transferred into the club. They also beat Nemo in the Division 1 League final.
The Sunday, October 27 double-header features four teams for whom a minimum requirement was being upstanding for the final day parades.
The bolters come in the lower-tier finals. Aghabullogue are in the Premier Intermediate final 12 months after winning the Intermediate A. The same applies to Canovee in the Premier Junior final. They too are chasing successive promotions.
Glanmire failed to emerge from their group in the four previous editions of the Intermediate A championship. In 2024, they went straight to the semis as the top group seeds and then overcame Gabriel Rangers at the weekend to move themselves into the decider.
The finals are as follows:
Friday, October 25: Cork Premier JFC final: Canovee v Kilmurry, Páirc Uí Chaoimh, 8pm.
Saturday, October 26: Cork IAFC final: Boherbue v Glanmire, Páirc Uí Chaoimh, 5.30pm; Cork Premier IFC final: Kilshannig v Aghabullogue, Páirc Uí Chaoimh, 7.30pm.
Sunday, October 27: Cork SAFC final: Knocknagree v Carrigaline, Páirc Uí Chaoimh, 2pm Cork Premier SFC final: Castlehaven v Nemo Rangers, Páirc Uí Chaoimh, 4pm.
Eoghan Cormican
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The strife of Brian.
Brian Hurley has had the usual obstacles in front of him this season. The body hasn’t always co-operated.
The inside forward clearly wasn’t at full range of movement or flow for Castlehaven’s All-Ireland club semi-final against St Brigid’s in early January. There was no necessary break following that club exit given Cork went into their National League opener against Donegal minus a whole host of injured scoring forwards.
Hurley found himself toiling above in Ballybofey in the wind and the rain when really he should have been at home recharging.
His troublesome hamstrings later took him out of the county’s All-Ireland series final round group game against Tyrone, a defeat which denied Cork direct access to the last eight of the championship.
On Sunday at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, the 32-year-old gave the clear impression of a man moving sweetly and without blemish. Where Castlehaven’s title defence is concerned, his timing is spot on.
The seven points he kicked from play, not to mind the two converted frees he won and the converted mark, means he will be priority No.1 when Nemo sit down to analyse the Barrs-Haven semi-final tape.
For a man who has had so many injury setbacks, you have to admire his ability to come roaring back each time.
EC
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Nemo Being Nemo.
If Séamus Heaney was the expert in recognising the extraordinary in the ordinary, then Nemo Rangers are the masters of making the extraordinary seem ordinary. Their Cork Premier SFC semi final win over Mallow Sunday was their 19th time in the final four of the Cork senior football championship since 1998.
Their comfortable 2-11 to 1-5 win meant that they have now progressed to the final on seventeen occasions. Only Ballincollig in 2014 and 2016 have managed to stop them at the penultimate stage. It truly is remarkable. As is their record in finals. As it stands, they are 13/16 since 1998. Only UCC and Castlehaven have beaten them. With the advent of the split season, the chances of UCC downing them again is minimal. The Haven have downed them twice, including last season. Will they be able to do so again?
John Coleman
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Bouncebackability.
Getting to a county final is hard. Getting back to one is even harder. Going into the semi-finals of the top five Cork championships in both codes, ten sides had a chance of making it into back-to-back finals, six in hurling, and four in football. Eight succeeded. The two teams that fell short were the Midleton’s Premier Senior and Intermediate A hurling teams.
On the football side of the house, Castlehaven and Nemo Rangers will once again vie for the ultimate honours at Premier Senior level. In the Premier Intermediate grade, Aghabullogue will have a shot at successive promotions when they take on Kilshannig while Kilmurry are back in the Premier Junior final after losing last year’s final to St Finbarr’s.
In hurling, experience counts for something too. Sarsfields are back in the Premier Senior final, Blarney are back in the Senior ‘A’ final, and St Catherine’s have made their way back into the Premier Junior Final. Catherine’s lost to Erin’s Own last season, and the Caherlag based club’s second string deserve a special mention here. By defeating Midleton in Cobh on Saturday, they’ve given themselves a chance of a unique three-in-a-row. They won the Junior 'A’ hurling county in 2022 by beating Kilshannig, they claimed the Premier Junior crown last season and Lisgoold now stand in their way of a third promotion.
Often the health of your second team is a good way to take the pulse of a club. Erin’s Own’s heart is beating stronger than most.
John Coleman
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The Castle Grounds, Macroom
As a venue, the Castle Grounds in Macroom is about as good as it gets. There’s always something dramatic about walking through the castle gates down towards the field and the way that the steep bank on the left towers over the field provides a real natural amphitheatre. Looking up at that towering mass of earth, it’s hard not to pity the Cork footballers that Larry Tompkins sent running up it again and again and again during his tenure as manager. The smaller bank on the opposite then provides something more intimate for those who like to be a bit closer to the action.
It really comes into its own for the games under lights, as it did when Aghabullogue defeated Naomh Abán there in the Premier IFC semi-final on Friday night. The football was competitive if not spectacular, but the character of the venue and the town helped to create a real sense of occasion. After the game the Baile Bhúirne faithful turned left at the gates to go home and lick their wounds while the Aghabullogue fans turned right towards Coachford to prepare for yet another county final.
It was the last time in 2024 that a top championship football game will be played anywhere other than Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Macroom may well be the ideal venue for Canovee and Kilmurry in the Premier JFC final, but titles are, and should be, won and lost at headquarters. Still, the jaunts around the county will be missed over the coming weeks.
John Coleman
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Arise Knocknagree
John Fintan Daly was keen to emphasise Knocknagree’s evolution after they gained revenge on a Dohenys side who had eliminated them at the same semi-final stage last year.
Of the team that defeated Kanturk in the 2020 Premier Intermediate final, only seven starters have held their jerseys heading into this Senior A decider against Carrigaline.
Experience is considered a most valuable commodity in defence, where six of those players lined out on Saturday.
In midfield and attack, the volume of change is wholesale with only Eoghan McSweeney remaining in situ.
Denis R O’Connor (0-4) and David O’Connor came on as subs that day. Anthony O’Connor (1-5) had a long-term injury and missed three years of football. Michael McSweeney (0-2), Tadc O’Mahony, and Killian Cronin were playing U21 last year.
Cronin had been featuring with their Junior A side this summer. On Saturday, he was hailed as a “tremendous young player” after his first Senior A action of the year.
The upshot of that influx gives them a powerful bench choc-full with experience. Four of their five substitutes against Dohenys were starters four years ago.
“Only one player in our team is over 30 and nine of our team are under 25,” said Daly.
“And they tell us that we’re past it and they tell us that we’re a fairy-tale team and we don’t like hearing that. We think that we’re developing all the time.
“Everyone that can walk in Knocknagree is playing football and if you weren’t playing football or had no interest in it, you’d be better off to live somewhere else!”
Stephen Barry
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Local spices are always best.
There won’t be a living soul left in Kilmurry parish on Friday week as its two clubs meet to contest the Cork Premier JFC county final.
On the southern side of the N22, Kilmurry are giving their congregation plenty of value. A third consecutive county final was achieved with trademark intensity to stifle free-scoring Buttevant.
Their rivals across the road, Canovee, held on against Kinsale to set up a spicy Mid Cork derby.
For extra relish, they emerged the victors in a “feisty” group-stage meeting by 2-8 to 0-9. It was a result achieved against a Kilmurry side who had already secured their progress.
“A lot of people probably don’t realise how big the rivalry is between Canovee and Kilmurry but the bottom line is that Canovee is in Kilmurry parish so we are right in the middle of it,” Canovee selector Tommy Murphy told the Echo last month. “Both are always vying for players and all that so it’s the biggest rivalry that we have.”
And the biggest chapter yet will be written in a Páirc Uí Chaoimh showdown.
SB
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Heartbreak in the west
Much of the pre-match chat in Cill na Martra on Saturday centred around the meeting of Boherbue and Adrigole in the Cork IAFC quarter-final two seasons ago, when the Duhallow club claimed a single point victory after 80 minutes plus of epic football. Tit-for-tat, level 10 times.
This time, it looked like Adrigole would get their semi-final revenge, even if the fare wasn't as riveting as 2022.They were six points up. One foot in the final.
Then they let it slip, absolutely crestfallen after conceding an unanswered 1-4 in the closing minutes. Inconsolable was Tim O’Sullivan and his squad.
Two small west Cork clubs made it to the final four of this competition, and both (Gabriel Rangers as well) suffered agonising one-point defeats. Coincidentally, the results were exactly the same (1-9 to 0-11).
Therese O'Callaghan
