Two proud clubs craving some county silverware
At last week's press night ahead of the Treanlaur Catering Mayo JFC 'B' final were, from left: Killala selector Brian Murphy and team captain Liam Maughan, Kilmovee captain Liam Moffatt, Sean Horan and manager Kieran Flatley.
Winning a county title at the home of Mayo GAA is not an opportunity that comes around all that often. Even getting the chance to contest a final in MacHale Park isn’t an everyday occurrence, particularly for these two clubs.
For Kilmovee Shamrocks, this is only their fourth county final. In fact, it is their third junior ‘B’ final since their first and only county success in 2017 – they were beaten in last year’s junior ‘B’ final and in 2019, while their other final appearance was in the 1990 junior ‘A’ decider – so to add a second junior ‘B’ title would be a massive achievement for the East Mayo club.
Killala themselves are playing in a first county final in a decade. That last appearance was one to forget as they were heavily beaten by an Ardnaree Sarsfields team that would subsequently reach the All-Ireland junior final, but after a disappointing ‘A’ championship this year, they will hope to round off the season on a high and win a first adult championship title since their 2008 junior ‘A’ success.
Kilmovee Shamrocks narrowly missed out on reaching the junior ‘A’ quarter-finals, losing out on head-to-head with Kiltimagh, after being defeated by Tourmakeady in their final group game.
“That day in the dressing-room, it was a hard one to swallow,” Kilmovee’s co-manager Kieran Flatley told the . “We didn’t deserve to lose on the day but we did. But it was a brilliant game of football and a couple of our players really stood up the mark and performed really, really well. From a management side of things it was good to see that.
“We could have thrown the hats and walked away but the lads were ambitious to get something out of the season because they’ve a lot of work put in, so we put our heads down and said we’d focus on the junior ‘B’.
“We took a week off and the numbers were there again and so was the hunger when we came back at training the following week.”
Kilmovee Shamrocks had obviously spent their time wisely and bounced back well with a straightforward victory over Ballycastle before an excellent win over Swinford in the junior ‘B’ semi-final.
Sean Horan, former Mayo underage star Cathal Horan and Sean Higgins, who played in that 2017 final victory, remain key cogs for the Shamrocks while Peter Horan is Kilmovee’s go-to man for scores, having accumulated 0-16 in their wins over Ballycastle and Swinford on their journey to another junior ‘B’ final.
Kieran Flatley, Brendan Horan, Robert Hunt and James Leonard managed Kilmovee’s under-21 team last year and it was only when the club was struggling to find a first-team manager this year that Kieran and co agreed to take temporary charge in January. You can call them permanent at this stage.
“It has been brilliant. When you were going to training and you had 24, 25 lads there, it was very hard to walk away from it,” admits Flatley. “Instead of us asking the questions, the lads asked us the questions.
“The main ambition we had as a management was to get a couple of lads back who were on the fence and who hadn’t played in the last couple of years.”
For the opening round of the championship, Kilmovee were able to name 32 players – and there’s more they’d still like to see back playing in the green and gold.
“We were really fortunate that two or three really good minors came through this year and we have three more coming next year. The underage amalgamation with Ballaghaderreen has really stood to our players. They’re playing that good quality, high calibre football which hopefully that will stand to our club over the next couple of years,” Kieran Flatley expressed.
Despite a spirited comeback, Killala were beaten late on by Ardagh in their opening group game of this year’s junior ‘A’ championship. Any positives from their performance in Round 1 however, were wiped out after a disappointing display and defeat to neighbours Ballycastle. A narrow loss to Ballycroy followed before defeat to Bonniconlon, in what was their fourth straight loss to North Mayo rivals. Glimpses in those two latter games however, suggested Killala had more in the tank ahead of the junior ‘B’ semi-final away to Achill.
That assertion proved correct as they blew away the three-in-a-row junior ‘B’ champions with an excellent second-half display.
“It was very pleasing to get a result back there. We knew we had to go and do a job. It’s knockout at that stage, there’s no room for being second best, and we knew we had a performance in us, it was just getting that out of the players,” Killala selector Brian Murphy told the .
“Achill really tested us hard for long periods of the game but when push came to shove in the second-half and lads had to step up, they stepped up pretty well. That was probably the most pleasing thing, seeing the performance on the pitch that we knew from training was there.”
Ben Stowe, who scored 2-7 on the day, will be pivotal to the Seasiders’ hopes and while Sean Walsh is likely to miss the final due to injury, the return of Mattie Keane for the semi-final was a huge boost to a side that has had their season marred by injuries.
“It was frustrating because even when you look at the results, we were thereabouts in nearly every game,” said Murphy of their ‘A’ championship run.
“I’d say two-thirds of our panel is under 21, so it was experience that was probably needed in some of those games. But the experience those boys will have gained from those championship games this year, it’s absolutely colossal.
“It was small margins in a lot of games but you have a choice when it comes to bad results; are you going to embrace a competition like this? We have. And the beauty is that we have such a young panel and for a lot of these boys it’s their first time wearing a Killala jersey in MacHale Park. Any lad who puts on that jersey, that’s their first instinct – to wear it in MacHale Park someday. And they’re going to get their chance now.”
Given Kilmovee’s familiarity with this occasion in recent years however, that might just be enough to tip the tie in Shamrocks’ favour.
