Big stakes on the small screen between northern rivals
Whatever about the weather, a repeat of the huge attendance at St Tiernan's Park for the Round 2 clash of Crossmolina Deel Rovers and Ballina Stephenites is expected next Sunday when the venue sees the home side take on Belmullet in a Mayo SFC quarter-final that will be televised live by TG4. Picture: David Farrell Photography
Seven different clubs have won the Moclair Cup since Crossmolina Deel Rovers last enjoyed that sensation while all three of Belmullet’s appearances in the final have ended in defeat, yet this was the tie that immediately captured the public’s imagination when the quarter-final draw took place. So much so that the cameras of TG4 will roll into St Tiernan’s Park next Sunday to broadcast this all-North Mayo affair to the nation.
Having topped Group 1 and beaten back-to-back title holders Ballina Stephenites along the way, Crossmolina have since been installed as 3/1 outright favourites to win this year’s Mayo Senior Football Championship. If they were to do so, they would become the first club to win intermediate and senior titles in consecutive years since Ballaghaderreen in 1971 and ’72.
The journey that the Deelsiders have embarked upon, since and including their incredible home defeat to Moy Davitts in last year’s group stages of the intermediate championship, to beating the same team after a county final replay and then winning Connacht and All-Ireland honours, doing so with a host of players still in, or not long out of, school trousers, not to mention the personal tragedy along the way, has truly captured the imagination.
Manager Brian Benson featured on the last Crossmolina side to win the Mayo SFC in 2006 but will be aware that his dream of joining that elite band of men to lift the Moclair Cup as both player and manager could easily be shattered by a Belmullet team smarting at not having topped their own championship group. Indeed the last second defeat to Breaffy saw Belmullet suffer the rather unusual fate of finishing second to a team that had won only one group game when they had won two.
The Erris side could be considered a wounded animal, in every sense, because the loss of centre-back Eoin O’Donoghue to a shoulder injury shortly after half-time was seen as pivotal in that defeat to Breaffy against whom they had led by four points in the second-half with the wind in their favour. But there is much greater substance to Belmullet’s defensive set-up than simply relying on a single Mayo defender; their average concession of 12.67 points per game wasn’t just lower than all fifteen of the other teams in the senior championship, but a full six points lower than Crossmolina’s. Where Belmullet have yet to concede a goal, Crossmolina have conceded seven, and where Belmullet have conceded only one two-point score from play, Crossmolina have conceded seven.
Their difficulty next Sunday, of course, and why they are currently rated 9/1 shots to win a first Mayo SFC title, is that they are about to face the team who has scored more than all others this season, with Crossmolina’s average of 26 points per game dwarfing the 15.33 of Belmullet, even if the latter have scored four two-pointers from play compared to Crossmolina’s one.
So while Belmullet will undoubtedly have the most decorated forward on show in the form of Ryan O’Donoghue, the collective threat of teenagers Kobe McDonald, Oisin Deane and Dylan Flynn, goal-machine Niall Coggins, James Maheady and ex-Cavan footballer Patrick Leddy will provide the formidable Belmullet defence its stiffest test yet.
What could give the visitors a fighting chance is if their impressive, physical midfielder pairing of Evan Ivers and Seamus Howard can impose their will on Jordan Flynn and Kobe McDonald respectively.
Not the couple of thousand spectators set to descend upon Deelside, nor the TG4 producers, should be surprised if extra-time is required to decide this one – the two teams were inseparable after normal and extra-time last March when Belmullet hosted and beat Cross’ on penalties in the Sweeney Cup in what was the latter’s first game since crowned All-Ireland intermediate champions. Both sides were at half strength that day but if there is to be a ‘shock’ result next weekend, it could be here: at what point will fatigue catch up on a Crossmolina panel that has barely had a break in two years at underage or senior? There’s an element of putting my neck on the line here but a Belmullet team that was able to go to Castlebar Mitchels and win is able to go to Crossmolina and win too.
