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Last weekend's demolition of Erin Rovers by Clara, and Rhodes easy win over Shamrocks, asks the question.....

is this the best we got? In all fairness to Rovers, they probably had their championship just getting to the semi. The Junior-B match that preceded the seniors was probably one of the better matches in O'Connor park for a while. I'm quoting the great Paddy McCormack, who said it was one of the most keenly contested matches he's seen in years!

So where's the fire and bottle in the seniors,... has this seeped into the county side's mental approach?

I think realistically this year, it was a case that there was a top two, with everyone else effectively nowhere. Tullamore were never at the races and Gracefield never recovered from the loss of a few key players, and they would have been likely candidates for inclusion in the top four. Shamrocks did let themselves down badly in the group stages but they were decent in the three games before that, while no-one else stood out.

Bad years can happen to every club, but the important thing for the likes of Tullamore and Gracefield is to come back next year in better shape, not to let this kind of mediocrity become a habit. Equally in terms of other clubs making the step up, well Ballycumber didn't do a lot wrong in that they were close enough to knocking off Shamrocks, Ferbane showed great potential against Tubber before coming off the rails a little bit after that, and St. Brigid's consolidated well at senior level and only lost out on a knockout place due to pulling in the reins and playing defensively against Pullough in the final group game. Any one of those clubs could argue that they are making some positive steps and could be well placed to improve another bit in 2010.