Knockmore are gathering momentum beneath the radar
Knockmore coach Joe Brolly in a post match discussion with the players after a game earlier this season. Picture: David Farrell Photography
Knockmore have been going about their business quietly but effectively, albeit there were more difficult groups to negotiate safe passage from than the triumvirate of Mayo Gaels, Balla and Westport.
He has never come across as the superstitious type – a man who believes the harder a team works, the luckier that team gets – but Ray Dempsey could be forgiven if hoping it’s a positive omen that his side has drawn Ballintubber in the quarter-finals given it was the same opponent his Knockmore teams beat at the same stage of the championship in 2020 and 2021, after which they won the Moclair Cup on both occasions.
Dempsey returned to his role this year to help pick up the pieces after Knockmore were totally outplayed by bitter rivals Ballina Stephenites in last season’s Mayo SFC final, and that they are now priced the same as the back-to-back champions (4/1) to go all the way this year indicates a definite steadying of the ship. And there’s a story, too, in Ballintubber being rated 9/1 to win the championship, including that having to travel to St Joseph’s Park next Sunday is seen as an enormous disadvantage. And yet, it’s there where Westport were able to share the spoils with the Saffron and Blue in Group 4, and where Castlebar Mitchels won by ten points in this year’s Mayo SFL Division 1A campaign.
Somewhat confusingly, it was in the absence of Cillian O’Connor that Ballintubber played their best football of this year’s championship when racing into a ten points lead against Ballaghaderreen in the concluding round of Group 3, where the winner would secure a home quarter-final. ‘Tubber had entered that match on the back of modest two points wins against Charlestown and Claremorris respectively, but if Ballagh’, particularly in O’Connor’s absence, had underestimated Ballintubber during the early exchanges, their response – and Ballintubber’s difficulties to cope with it – was eye-opening.
Shane McHale, Marcus Park, James Ruddy and Keith Ruttledge were the only players out of the nineteen used in their 2021 Mayo SFC final win not to feature in Knockmore’s victory over Mayo Gaels last Sunday week, with Kieran King and Nathan Armstrong among the key returns from injury this season. It’ll take the very best of Jason Gibbons, Bryan Walsh, Michael Plunkett, Ciaran Gavin, Stephen O’Malley, Diarmuid O’Connor and, if fit, his brother Cillian, if Ballintubber are to beat the bookies.
Verdict: Knockmore
