‘Big four’ still ahead in battle for Dowling Cup
Kevin Egan Column
For the first time in 11 years, the semi-final line up of the the All-Ireland senior camogie championship won’t be Kilkenny, Cork and Galway plus one. As if that wasn’t enough, the ‘plus one’ didn’t win any of the ten semi-finals played between 2013 and 2022.
There have been some wonderful games played in the latter stages of the senior camogie championship in recent years, but what it hasn’t been is unpredictable – and the parallels with the Offaly SFC are obvious. Here at home, five clubs between them have made up the Dowling Cup finalists for the last 15 years, just three clubs have got there in the last five years, and the 2020, 2021 and 2022 county finals have all involved Rhode taking on Tullamore.
On the face of it, there’s no obvious reason to expect anything hugely different over the next few months. It’s easy to make a case for the two leading contenders to get back to county final Sunday, it looks clear-cut that if either Rhode or Tullamore don’t get there, then Ferbane and Edenderry are the front runners to usurp them, and it gets much more difficult to see anyone outside the top four doing anything more than perhaps landing a one-off shock win. Is that too simple? Let’s break it down.
For some time now, it has been expected that the age profile of Rhode would be their undoing. It’s not that Rhode are the only club with players well into their 30s, it’s not that those players aren’t model professionals who look after themselves very well, and it’s not that the Village haven’t got a sprinkling of very promising young players waiting in the wings to step in. But while every club has to evolve and regenerate, the players involved for Rhode are generational players - men that will be celebrated in the annals of Offaly football history many years from now.
Of course, we’ve been saying the same thing for some time, and yet there were green and gold ribbons on the Dowling Cup when it was handed over last year. Still, it feels like a lot of things went their way in last year’s final, and even still, it came down to two excellent chances at the end – Tullamore missed theirs, and Niall McNamee did exactly what we would expect him to do. For that reason, it makes sense that the bookies have pushed Tullamore into odds-on favourites.
Losing Johnny Moloney is a huge blow, but given their injury issues over the past two years, getting Cormac Egan and John Furlong back in will feel like two new players, and that’s before we add in a genuine new recruit in Niall Furlong. Aaron Leavy and Nigel Bracken showed up well for Offaly even while the wheels were coming off in the Tailteann Cup, and a midfield partnership of Leavy and Michael Brazil will carry a team a long way in a county where elite midfielders are thin on the ground. If there’s any sense of grievance or frustration at what happened in 2022 and they channel it well, this championship is the Blues’ to lose.
Most would expect the challenge to come from Ferbane if it comes from anywhere, and it’s hard to argue with that, given that Ger Rafferty’s side lost to Rhode on penalties last year. Oisín Kelly’s absence is no different to 2022, and one would expect that David Nally will be back in harness by the time they get to the ‘must-win’ stage of the season. They came closest to Tullamore in the league, and they certainly have the depth needed to compete.
On paper, Edenderry have as much talent as anyone, yet they’ve failed to deliver on their potential in recent years. Much will depend on their ability to get Cian Farrell back to his 2021 form, since they don’t have the firepower across the rest of the forward line to compensate if their main man isn’t performing at a high level. Their energy, mobility and physical power means they’re well able to rack up the scores on weaker sides, but ultimately, they’re going to have to win two knockout games against the three teams above them on this list in order to get where they need to be, and that’s a very different challenge.
Since making four consecutive finals between 2009 and 2012 – an unprecedented run of consistency for a club that only ever made back-to-back deciders once in their history prior to that – Clara have only been in one final, and even went through relegation. One could argue that they needed to make that journey in order to speed up the transition from one generation to the next, and they’ve arrived at a point where they have a young panel with plenty of quality, particularly in the middle third of the field.
With Seamus O’Brien absent for the year, their prospects hinge on their ability to add some dynamism to the forward line. Whether that means Alex Egan becoming a consistent scorer and taking on a leadership role, maybe redeploying Marcas Dalton to the half-forward line, or even someone like Josh Fleming stepping up to another level, they need something more to add to the threat posed by Cormac Delaney.
If they had a full team on the pitch, we’d say that Shamrocks were at least in the same bracket as their neighbours Clara, but Vinny Henry has his hands tied with a myriad of injuries and absentees, and that makes them leading relegation contenders. Put Kieran Dolan, Padraig Cantwell, Paddy Dunican and David O’Toole Greene on the field, and they’re a force to be reckoned with. As it is, they’ll do well to be still alive by the time Jack Bryant gets back, when they’ll hope that he has found his 2021/2022 form.
Durrow are much harder to assess, since their fortunes will swing hugely on how well the hurling and football clubs in the parish can co-exist. There is something of a power imbalance at the moment as the majority of players that Durrow need to commit wholeheartedly to the cause are hurlers first and foremost, and while they’ll happily tog out in green and red, that’s not the same as giving hurling and football equal commitment. It’s also fair to say that Ballinamere are genuine, legitimate county championship contenders. Durrow are not, and while people in the club won’t say it out loud, the players know this too.
Because of the issues facing those two clubs, our prediction is that the other quarter-finalist will be Bracknagh. The reigning senior ‘B’ champions won’t have either Fionn Dempsey or Jim Hendy this year so they face huge defensive challenges, but they also have plenty of magic up front, and will no doubt bring a bit of a bounce into this season on the back of winning silverware in such a dramatic fashion last autumn. It’s hard to see them testing any of the big guns, but expect them to pick up a win against Shamrocks tonight (Friday) and to follow that up with three competitive showings, albeit all three contests will most likely end in defeat.