K-K equipped to dominate for some time to come
By Kevin Egan
For Carrig and Riverstown, 2023 is still very much up and running, and even though Tullogher-Rosbercon are the hottest of favourites for the Leinster junior final in Tullamore tomorrow (Saturday), the prospect of their season running into 2024 is still very much alive and well.
For the other 20 clubs in the county that play adult hurling, however, the year is in the record books, and there is absolutely no doubt as to who is top of the heap after Kilcormac-Killoughey ended the year with both the Senior 'A' and Senior 'B' championships, not to mention their utter dominance at U-20. But the rest? The Offaly Independent is hear to give you the definitive rankings!
(1) Kilcormac-Killoughey (up 2): Sport is too unpredictable to say that they will hold onto this top spot for the next decade, but it’s a measure of quite how good they look that you couldn’t rule it out. They’re absolutely dominant at underage level as well, and notably, many of the clubs that are the biggest threat to them at underage level are a long way down the pecking order in the adult grades, so those players aren’t coming into established senior setups. Unquestionably, another Leinster title has to be the target. Their performance against O’Loughlin Gaels last month is a very solid foundation on which to build towards that.
(2) Shinrone (down 1): After their historic 2022 season, many people expected them to slip back into the middle of the pack this year. They didn’t, and instead made a virtue of consistently winning the type of tight games that historically, were their weak spot. The quality of the hurling in their quarter-final win over Birr in particular was exceptional, and they remain the most likely threat to Kilcormac-Killoughey for the foreseeable future.
(3) Birr (up 2): Bit by bit, it’s coming together in the town. For a long time, strength in depth was a big problem, but now they’ve added a seriously competitive second team and are as well-equipped as anyone outside of the county champions on that front. Lochlann Quinn, Morgan Watkins, Luke Nolan and Colm Mulrooney are all forwards with real potential to kick on and add to the obvious threat of Eoghan Cahill, and if Emmet Nolan stays around and gets more hurling, he will become a much bigger threat too. They’re still about three or four players short of really testing K-K, but they’re getting there.
(4) St Rynagh’s (no change): They stand still on the rankings, but there is still a sense that they’re getting further away from where they need to be, rather than closer. A huge amount of transition is coming and while there are some very good young players coming through in this year’s minor team, there isn’t nearly enough for them to easily replace the type of quality they’re losing.
(5) Ballinamere (up 1): For the second year in a row, their form in the knockout stages didn’t match what they did in the round robin, and that’s on the verge of becoming a habit. We said in this column last year that their youth is not an excuse any longer, since they have more Offaly senior panelists in their starting 15 than any other club. A handful of key guys who are approaching their mid-20s will determine if the graph keeps going in the right direction.
(6) Coolderry (up 2): From an Offaly point of view, Coolderry’s improvement was a hugely welcome development, since it was built on younger players stepping up and leading the group, as opposed to hardy veterans squeezing one more good summer out of their ageing legs. Billy Burke at 6, Gearóid McCormack at 11 and Daniel Miller beside him had really good years, and it looks like the threat of relegation, which was absolutely hanging over their heads in recent years, has faded. A very good showing by the intermediates was also encouraging.
(7) Belmont (down 5): We don’t like saying that the window of opportunity has closed, but it’s getting close to the point where that will be the reality. Injuries to David Nally and Oisín Kelly absolutely ripped the life out of them this year, but there was more to their collapse than that, as they fell farther and farther off the pace as the summer went on. Now there are suggestions that three or four starters (at least) will on foreign shores by the time next summer comes around, so the pressure is on for new manager James Murphy.
(8) Tullamore (up 3): Okay, they just beat Kinnitty by a point, but it could be argued that even in their other games, they offered a lot more threat up front and didn’t deserve to be underdogs going into that crucial round four group game. If they keep going in the right direction with a comparatively young group, they’ll probably be able to find one or two clubs weaker than them in 2024 as well.
(9) Kinnitty (down 2): It was a fiercely tough group and they delivered when they needed to in the relegation final (albeit that result may yet turn out to be academic) but the lack of any forward threat is turning into a huge problem. Scoring 1-8, 0-15 and 0-11 in three group games is way short of the type of numbers needed to really threaten better sides, and within that lies a real dependence on creating chances from frees.
(10) Seir Kieran (down 1): They’re in the unusual position right now of not being entirely certain as to whether they will be a Senior A or Senior B team in 2023, but on the form they showed in the early part of the championship, they could certainly do okay if they were handed a reprieve from relegation. There are no stars in the post-Joe-Bergin era in Clareen, but they have a lot of capable, solid performers and clearly responded well to Barry Whelahan’s guidance this year.
(11) Clodiagh Gaels (down 1): Injuries and suspensions didn’t do them any favours in their county final clash with Kilcormac-Killoughey, and all things considered, they did quite well to keep it that close in a game where many would have expected a more comprehensive win for the favourites. They’re well-coached and defensively in particular, are greater than the sum of their parts – but scoring 4-24 against Shamrocks masked the inconsistency of their attack.
(12) Clara (no change): Okay, Lusmagh got into the knockout stages while Clara didn’t, but across the board, Clara were consistently competitive, even if they fell just short in a few games. There is a generation growing up in the town that is used to treating hurling and football with equal levels of priority, and while the footballers’ relegation might lead to a perception that the Senior B football title is the more realistic goal, they’re entitled to believe that a double is realistic.
(13) Lusmagh (no change): That semi-final defeat to Kilcormac-Killoughey was nothing short of harrowing, but they’re nowhere near as far off the mark as that 6-27 to 0-10 score might suggest. The lack of power at midfield and half-forward sometimes shows through a bit too much and they can struggle to stay in a game where momentum is going against them, but there’s plenty of hurling in their panel all the same.
(14) Carrig and Riverstown (up 2): If they were to turn around and pull off an upset in tomorrow’s Leinster final, it could be worth bumping them up another couple of slots, but the most likely outcome is that a wonderful year for the club comes to an end at the hands of a very strong Tullogher-Rosbercon side. Nonetheless they were very impressive this year, with plenty of pace and energy, while their middle four of Patrick Bergin, Cathal King, Peter King and Brendan Hoctor is senior standard. They were surprisingly dominant in their county semi-final and final clashes, albeit Donal Moran’s red card in the semi-final had a big bearing.
(15) Drumcullen (down 1): Would they have given Carrig and Riverstown a tougher test if they got through to the final, instead of shipping those devastating second-half goals? How much stronger would they have been with a fully fit Colm Gath? We’ll never know the answers to these questions, but we can say that they had three comprehensive wins in 2023, and lost their two tight games, so that suggests that it wouldn’t take a lot to turn things around. There’s a decent first team panel there by intermediate standards and at underage level, the club is doing a lot right – they’ll expect to get a lot better in the next three or four years.
(16) Shamrocks (down 1): Only a slight change in the rankings, but 2023 was a desperately poor year all the same where they were way off the pace at Senior B, and then had their second team pull out of the junior championship. There was no sense at any stage either that they had the mentality needed to turn things around, once the wheels started to come off. They’ve proven before that they can thrive at intermediate, but an immediate bounce back is needed here.
(17) Edenderry (up two): Scoring hadn’t been a problem for the Reds in recent years, but it absolutely was in 2023. Take away a decent start to the championship against Seir Kieran and they scored 0-5, 0-8 and 0-11 in their next three matches. There were some encouraging displays at U-13 and U-15 level this year, but there’s a long way to go between there and adult level, so just holding their own at intermediate level looks to be as much as they can realistically hope for over the next couple of seasons.
(18) Brosna Gaels (no change): Two walkovers in the group stages meant that they played two championship matches by the last day of September, which is always a risk associated with playing your hurling in the fourth tier of the championship. Ballinamere were always going to be incredibly strong – an average of 40 points per game in the group stages must surely be some sort of record – but a desperately poor first half showing in the final in Kilcormac left the Gaels with no chance of testing them. They absolutely have to win this championship in 2024, they can’t afford to stay at this level for much longer.
(19) Crinkill (up 1): Going into the knockout stages on the back of an unmerciful beating from Ballinamere wasn’t ideal, but Crinkill overcame that and played out a very entertaining quarter-final against Clodiagh Gaels, losing out by a point. It brought a solid first campaign at Junior 'A' level to an end, and while there’s a bit of work to be done before winning this championship is realistic, they’ll be a better team for have the experience of this campaign behind them.
(20) Ballyskenach-Killavilla (down 1): Played one good competitive game against Clodiagh Gaels and lost their other two championship matches with a bit to spare, while being spared a relegation playo-ff by virtue of the fact that other second teams were unable to put teams on the field. This year was all about the minors, and the new change in rules means that they will get the chance to win another minor title with the same players next year, though that comes at a cost, since it means that players like Fionn and Robert Carney won’t be available to play junior hurling. In the long run, that’s probably a good thing, but the club could really do with more positivity at adult level in the interim.
(21) Gracefield (no change): The drop to Junior 'B' suited the club, as they enjoyed an excellent year that featured some very good wins, even if it was the case that they never got off the ground in what was a surprisingly one-sided final against Birr. They got good numbers out playing and after a difficult 2022, this will no doubt have been a tonic of a year. In as much as it’s ever possible to tell these things at this level, the 2024 championship is theirs to lose.