Off The Fence With Fergie O’Loughlin

We are now down to the last two standing in the race for the Canon Hamilton trophy and everyone is counting down already to what should be an enthralling county final.

In the overall context of the championship, it is fair to say that two best teams are going to cross swords and it promises to be an epic clash between Sixmilebridge and Cratloe.

Before we talk about the games, we have to talk about the standard of refereeing over the weekend. Some of it was very good, but most of it was very poor. Niall Malone was impressive in the Cratloe v Crusheen game, albeit it was an easy game to do because it was over as a contest early in the second half. I liked the way he let the game flow and I liked how he communicated with his officials and the players. In contrast to that, I felt Chris Maguire was poor in the intermediate semi final between Broadford and Smith O’Brien’s. You train teams to play with high intensity and I felt he destroyed the game. 37 frees in a game is horrendous to blow for. Jarlath Donnellan was hot and cold in the other senior semi-final. I think they will be very disappointed in Inagh-Kilnamona with some of his decisions. His officials let him down badly with that off the ball incident that went unpunished. You have to also question how the man that did last year’s final, Wayne King, has only had one senior championship game this year when he took charge of Clonlara v O’Callaghan’s Mills and he hasn’t done a game since. If he was good enough for a county final, then he should have been doing a good number of games this year.

On the field, both semi-finals looked like intriguing contests but you would have to be disappointed with the Cratloe v Crusheen game in particular where Crusheen totally fell apart in the second half. They disbanded their game plan which had been really effective in the first half where they flooded the danger zone and choked out the space that Cratloe had to work in. It took a huge amount of energy out of them and when they went man for man, they were in trouble particularly in that inside line. Fitness looked to catch them a bit in the second half and Rian Considine’s goal just set it up for Cratloe to control from there. Once they got into their rhythm, there was only going to be one outcome. Crusheen will be disappointed in how their year finished. We spoke about the progress they have made with a relatively young group coming in to mix the more experienced lads but they were just not able to get to the pace of the game in the second half.

Inagh-Kilnamona will look back on their semi final and wonder why they didn’t put their foot on the throats of the Bridge lads when they were in control and hold it there. They lacked that bit of experience in slowing the game down when it needed to be done. They will also look at the soft frees they conceded but will also be disappointed with some of the frees that were given against them. The goal was a big talking point and I still can’t see why it was disallowed. On the other hand, they can count themselves very lucky to have finished with 14 after a blatant off the ball incident that none of the officials picked up on, and Jarlath Donnellan’s officials let him down badly there.

Great credit has to go to Sixmilebridge. I have said repeatedly that when it gets to the business end of the championship, it takes a really good team to beat them. Their leaders stood up when the task was at its greatest, and moving Seadna Morey onto Aidan McCarthy was a major turning point. They managed the game once they took control and commanded the pace. Their fitness levels are key to their success in the last few games. They are really driving on in the last 15 minutes when other teams are gasping. It is something Cratloe will have look at in the final because the last quarter of the game is when the Bridge at their best. Cratloe will have no fitness issues either but when you look at last year, Cratloe’s worst period in the final was the final stages so they will be wary of that. They are in a great position now to learn from that defeat last year and that hurt will drive them to rectify that this time around. The problem for them is that they are playing the team that are most difficult to beat in a final and that is Sixmilebridge.

It really is going to be a cracker.