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To the outsider looking in, it would be easy to assume that there’s nothing between the top two teams in Offaly hurling. Birr were kingpins for a long time, but were deservedly unseated by Coolderry in last year’s decider. Both Birr and Coolderry cruised through their groups winning all their games – and while Birr’s group looked more difficult on paper, the semi finals will see Birr joined by three teams from Coolderry’s group 2. Finally, on Saturday evening in Banagher both teams ran up large margin victories over moderate group 3 teams to secure their place in the penultimate series of games. It all looks set up for a fantastic decider between the two, notwithstanding any shock performances from Shinrone or Kinnitty.

However looks can be deceptive. Coolderry may have finished thirteen points in front when Martin Kirwan blew his final whistle, but a young and inexperienced Belmont side competed ferociously with their more illustrious opponents for three quarters of this game before Paddy Teehan’s 46th minute goal made it safe, and in doing so exposed several weaknesses in the champions’ game that would be heavily exploited in a fixture against Birr. That the scoreline was as lopsided as it turned out to be at the end was largely down to the efforts of two players – centre forward Brian Carroll, who scored six points from play in a fantastic display of shooting, raising white flags from all angles of the pitch; and centre back Joe Brady, who fielded countless high balls and was a one man defensive wall that Belmont could do little or nothing to counteract. He completely dominated Seán Grennan, who poses a significant physical threat to any direct marker, and also comfortably got the better of Tomás Bennett, a county under twenty one player this year and no slouch by any stretch of the imagination. The big Coolderry man has had his detractors when playing for the county, but on the strength of this display, he clearly still has a major role to play in John McIntyre’s team in 2006.

Following directly after an assured performance from Birr in the earlier match, supporters were keen to compare and contrast the two sides. Much like Lusmagh before them, Belmont started off very competitively, fought hungrily for every ball, and got their reward through two early scores from Grennan and Ciarán Kenny. However even though they were matching Coolderry both for skill and endeavour at this stage, they were letting good scoring chances slip by, and once Coolderry got off the mark with a Damien Murray free on seven minutes, the champions embarked on a fine ten minute spell, cancelling out that early burst and a lot more besides. Murray added two more points, before Danny Masterson scored the first goal of the game, finishing off a rebound after Declan Nugent saved a snapshot from Murray from close range. Further points from Brian Carroll and Paddy Teehan rounded off the ten minutes of scoring to leave the scoreline 1-5 to 0-2 in Coolderry’s favour.

It was at this stage that you would have expected Coolderry to kick on and put Belmont away, but it never happened. The remainder of the half was won by Belmont by two points to one, and this trend was maintained in the second half, the two sides matching each other with each team having their own areas of dominance on the field. To Coolderry’s credit they marshalled the twin threat of the Egan brothers very well throughout the game, to the point where both players finished scoreless from play, but equally they’ll have been concerned with how their midfield and half forward line, with the exception of Carroll, were completely outplayed. David Kenny in particular was the class midfielder on show, and will surely have impressed the watching John McIntyre much more than Alan Corcoran, his more vaunted marker.

The first ten minutes of the second half saw the sides register three points apiece, and when an Alan Egan free brought his side to within four on 43 minutes, you felt that a goal could greatly change this game. Unfortunately for the diminutive corner forward, it went against his team instead of in their favour, and ultimately broke the 2004 Intermediate Champions’ resistance. Paddy Teehan won a high ball over the head of John Egan, who was now struggling with an injury after being utterly dominant throughout, and laid off to Murray, whose shot was wonderfully saved by Nugent – only for the rebound to again fall into the path of Teehan following in, who duly swept the ball home into the empty net. Whatever hope Belmont had was extinguished at this point. The last ten minutes were a practise run for Coolderry, who began to open their shoulders, and to be fair, scored some fine points. They scored six points in the last ten minutes, but ultimately they were the type of scores that won’t present themselves in games to come, and won’t fool their own management into thinking that they remain anything but second favourites for the county title unless their general play around the field improves.

A final note must be made regarding the performance of referee Martin Kirwan. While no-one doubts that even club hurling has changed to the point where the game moves at great pace, and keeping up with play can be very difficult for even the youngest of referees, during this match the referee rarely if ever moved more than 20 metres from the centre spot in any direction, and as a result some of his calls regarding incidents that were happening close to the goals and in the corners were dubious to say the least. It goes without saying that in a thirteen point game it did not affect the result of the game in any material way, but several off the ball skirmishes went unchecked, and in a tighter or more acrimonious game this could have had unfortunate consequences. Such a lacklustre performance is unfair on the two teams involved, and should really be avoided at this level.

Teams:

Coolderry: Shane O’Connor; Trevor Corcoran, Brendan O’Meara, Alan Corcoran; Kevin Brady (0-1), Joe Brady, Barry Teehan; James Masterson (0-1), Martin Corcoran; Cathal Parlon, Brian Carroll (0-6), Dermot Dooley; Danny Masterson (1-0), Paddy Teehan (1-2), Damien Murray (0-6, 0-3 frees).

Subs: Kevin Teehan for Cathal Parlon, Andrew Hall for James Masterson


Belmont: Declan Nugent; Derek Kenny, John Egan, Tom Coleman; Ronan Daly, James Murphy, Colin Egan (0-1); Kevin Flynn, David Kenny; Tomás Bennett (0-2), Seán Grennan (0-1), Ciarán Kenny (0-2); Jason Clancy, Alan Egan (0-1, free), Paul Egan (0-2, frees).

Sub: Alan Clancy for Jason Clancy, Declan Murphy for Seán Grennan.

Referee: Martin Kirwan

Final scoreline defintely flatters Coolderry. Belmont must surely rue their missed chances, of which there were plenty. And even at that, they were still in touch until Coolderry pulled away in the final ten minutes. Wasted a few chances too sending in high balls on Alan Egan, who's a super hurler who needs good ball placed properly.

Not a bad first year at senior.

Not a bad first year indeed for Belmont, they are young, skillful, hungry and are the up-and-coming team in offaly in my opinion...
David Kenny, Ciaran Kenny and Tomas Bennett must surely get at least a trial for the county team next year, and alan egan must surely be included in the underage county teams.

Very wasteful Belmont were, but Coolderry's experience was always going to shine through in the end.

Give belmont 2 or 3 more years at senior and We could see them contest a senior final.

I wouldn't get carried away. Unlike Clara or Tullamore or the likes, I think in coming years Belmont have the makings of a decent senior team, and should reach the level of Shinrone, Kinnitty, possibly even Skenach. I don't know if I see them going any further.

What is true is that they probably have as good a selection of young players as there is in the county. The age profile of that team was very young, with by my count seven starters under 21, and they weren't the weaker players either. To go further they'd need an awful lot of depth to fill that out, and I don't know where they will come from. Rynagh's, K/K Coolderry and Birr all have decent intermediate panels backing them up - Belmont's second string was playing Junior B on sunday. If I thought Harry Kearns, who was a massive loss for that game, was going to be back, I'd give them a great chance of reaching the quarters at least again next year. However the word is he mightn't play at that level at all again.

Regarding the county, I would say that Bennett and Ciaran Kenny are a long way off that level. They're both young enough and good enough to make it at some stage, but not yet. If I was picking from that team for county triallists, I'd agree with David Kenny, but John Egan would certainly be the other for me, with Alan Egan likely to play under 21, and Colin Egan going to be a key player for the minors for the next two years. (An under 16 player this year who held Parlon scoreless, forcing him to be taken off, and at the end chipped in with a great score of his own - )

Very proud of them, but I wouldn't go getting carried away yet.

Yeah I definitely agree with your assessment of Colin egan, He's got the potential to be a class act, john egan is actually heading off to australia for a year next month which puts him out of contention for county trials, But definitely david Kenny should get a callup.
Belmont missed Harry Kearns this year, and he told me recently that all going well with his Knee op next month, he'll be back all guns blazing next february/march.

Definitely the most improved club in the county over the last 2 years, they've benifitted greatly from a change of emphasis from a physical team to a fast, direct and disciplined one.

We'll never know what would have happened if Coolderry hadn't scored that second goal.

Didn't expect Joe Brady to dominate the way he did, but he won the game for them in cutting off the supply to the Egans.

Set up now for the Battle of Rath, mark III.

Lone Shark, couldnt let ur comment below pass without calling u to task on it:

"I wouldn't get carried away. Unlike Clara or Tullamore or the likes, I think in coming years Belmont have the makings of a decent senior team, and should reach the level of Shinrone, Kinnitty, possibly even Skenach."

not wishing to comment on Clara, as I dont know much about them, I can say that your comment that Tullamore have not the basis of a good senior team in the coming years is a little unfounded.

This year the team was made up of 6/7 players out of minor grade last year with another couple of under 21s in the starting 15 as well. They have made 3 county minor semi finals in a row, losing narrowly in two of them. and this year reached the under 21 county semi final, losing to St. R. who were the eventual champions.

These players have the potential to develop into decent senior standard players, every bit as much as your beloved Belmont and some of the other clubs of similiar ilk.

While i accept that u have every right to ur opinion (and it was probably a remark which not very much thought went into, or intention to be nasty) which i respect very much btw, i feel it is such remarks and general attitude towards hurling in the north of the county that attempts to keep it as a minority sport. in that area..something which the county board should be seriously considering if they wish to make progress and compete at a seriously in the future...

Is there a date set for the final ?

16th October

As Such Ger wrote:not wishing to comment on Clara, as I dont know much about them, I can say that your comment that Tullamore have not the basis of a good senior team in the coming years is a little unfounded.

This year the team was made up of 6/7 players out of minor grade last year with another couple of under 21s in the starting 15 as well. They have made 3 county minor semi finals in a row, losing narrowly in two of them. and this year reached the under 21 county semi final, losing to St. R. who were the eventual champions.

These players have the potential to develop into decent senior standard players, every bit as much as your beloved Belmont and some of the other clubs of similiar ilk.

While i accept that u have every right to ur opinion (and it was probably a remark which not very much thought went into, or intention to be nasty) which i respect very much btw, i feel it is such remarks and general attitude towards hurling in the north of the county that attempts to keep it as a minority sport. in that area..something which the county board should be seriously considering if they wish to make progress and compete at a seriously in the future...

I would like nothing more than for you to be right about this - however: there are several reasons why I don't think it will come to pass. With the exception of Harry Kearns early in the year and John Egan, Belmont's star acts have been the young players. Tullamore have not been too far off the standard of Belmont to be fair, but in contrast they've still been dependant on players like Feeney and Pe Kelly in key positions. Tullamore's underage will always be strong because in a club with such a large pick, they'll never have to field poor players to make up the fifteen - smaller clubs like Belmont always will - however what you want from an underage team is three or four players really good enough to make the grade rather than a strong panel. You can see this by the fact that Tullamore's under 21 team would beat Belmont's - but still Belmont had two starters on this year's under 21 team, and Ciarán Kenny not far off. Tullamore only had Shane Dooley.

A lot of Tullamore's good players have been their younger players, but James Keane will certainly end up focussing on football, and is probably not an instinctive hurler anywway, Shane Dooley could also go either way for all his father's legendary status in the game, Shane Kelly looks good but is very dependant on pace which will get shown up against better teams, and when he gets to mid twenties, which really only leaves Stephen Egan - now him I am genuinely excited about.

I can assure you I've no vested interest in denigrating efforts at promoting hurling in the north of the county at all. I just think that Belmont have enough class to become a top 6 club in Offaly in the near future, while Tullamore are that bit behind them - let's not forget that if Carrig, Ballinamere/Durrow or Crinkle had won the intermediate this year Tullamore would be relegated - and I expect Belmont's best younger players to develop that bit more.

In contrast if Shamrocks were to really focus on the hurling I think they're only a year or two behind Belmont and could make it too. I'd love to be wrong about Tullamore, but I don't think I am.