Knockbride remain the team to beat as JFC down to four

The Junior Football Championship has been very strong in Cavan in recent years, with the likes of Killinkere, Drumlane, Denn and Arva all among the best sides to come out of the grade in living memory, as backed up by subsequent performances in the Ulster Club Championship and All-Ireland series.

Now, it’s down to the last four and, unusually perhaps, the best four sides have made it this far.

On the face of it, Redhills have drawn the short straw in being paired with Knockbride. The Canningstown men have been prohibitive favourites since before a ball was kicked and with good reason.

Last year, they won the Division 2 league title, beating Cuchulainns in the final, and they were unlucky not to retain their Division 1 status this year, pulling off an eye-catching win over last year’s senior finalists Kingscourt Stars and twice beating Castlerahan.

Last year, Arva cruised through to the Junior Championship and beat Knockbride by 12 points in the final, with the Arva camp admitting on a few occasions afterwards that they had rated Aidan McCabe’s men extremely highly.

Pre-championship, an argument could have been made that no side in junior ranks would come close to Knockbride but that has been blown out of the water now. In the opening round, Drung held them to a draw and in the quarter-final, Munterconnaught trailed by just two points entering second-half injury time.

Those matches will have given hope to Redhills and the other sides remaining in the competition that Knockbride, for all their talent, can be got at. And that talent is not in question – they have the strongest panel of players, on paper, in the grade and they will be adding to that with the return of the outstanding Philip Rogers, who has been overseas, in time for the semi-final.

The likes of Liam Fay, who was part of the extended county panel for a while earlier this year and reportedly went well on the pre-season challenge match circuit, Niall McCabe, Ciaran Smith, the Nulty brothers et al are exceptional while teenager Lorcan Reilly has been shooting the lights out. He has scored a superb 1-37 by our count; interestingly, his father, former county stalwart Peter, 10-29 in the 1994 Junior Championship at a similar age.

The border side, for their part, are vying with Kill Shamrocks for the title of most improved team in the county. Redhills failed to get out of the group in junior in the last three seasons – quite a fall from grace for a side who topped Division 1 of the league in 2010 but lost a lot of players thereafter.

Redhills are probably the most seasoned side in the competition but veterans like Alan Brady, Cormac McMahon, Pearse West, Derek Fay, Rory Dunne and captain Cormac Brides, who all won intermediate medals 16 years ago and some of whom were on the Junior-winning side 19 years ago, have all done well. Turloc Mooney, at 30, is the youngest of this group of experienced players and the former county man remains the key figure and probably the best footballer in the competition on his day.

While underage success has been limited, with the Naomh Bríd amalgamation (with Drumalee) tending to operate in the lower divisions in recent years, a few quality young players have broken into the team.

The form of Joshua and Matthew Mohan has been impressive while the Martin brothers, Sean and Paul, who are in their mid-20s, have been integral thus far.

However, Knockbride are strong favourites and are fancied to get the job done.

In the second of the semi-finals, Kill Shamrocks take on Belturbet in an intriguing clash. The Rorys, in their first year back in junior ranks since winning the competition back in 1995, had a slow-burner of a campaign in that they lost two matches in the group stage but they picked it up in round three with a win against Kill and their second-half performance against Shannon Gaels in the quarter-final was impressive.

Under club stalwart Mark Lawlor, the Rorys had a difficult league campaign in Division 2 but retained their status with a play-off win over Denn (who are now in the Intermediate semi-final).

Belturbet have tended not to score heavily and have been reliant on Enda Henry in that department in recent years.

They hit 3-9 in their opening round win over Drumalee, the three goals coming in the last 10 minutes, but managed just 0-12, 1-8 and 0-13 in their three remaining matches, losses to Drung and Knockbride and that win over the Shamrocks.

However, they will be delighted to have scored 1-12 in the second half alone against Shannon Gaels and their overall 2-16 was a new high for the year in terms of the number of scores, although they did equal it when hitting 5-7 against Templeport in the league back in March.

The return from injury of Cormac Donohoe, who was prominent when coming on at midfield at half-time last time out, is huge for the Rorys, as is the form of Callum McGreevy and Fionan O’Reilly, who scored 1-8 between them last time out.

The energetic Henry, the team’s talisman, is usually good for four or five points from frees and play while at the back, the likes of Killian Murray, Liam Mulligan and captain Cian Vaughan in goals have been very solid, although a key figure in Stuart Dunne was missing last time out.

While they have already beaten Kill, that game is likely to have little bearing here as the Rathluden men were already qualified for the knock-out stages when they met while the Rorys had to win to avoid going out.

Like Redhills, the Shamrocks have improved significantly this year under the management of Glen Nulty and Darren Greenan. The experienced Niall McCaffrey remains a prolific scorer from dead balls and play and the energy and finishing ability of the McCauley brothers, who have hit six goals between them in this championship campaign, is a major plus.

Ben McIntyre has also been going very well and it’s clear to see they are getting better; Kill and Drumalee met twice in the league and shared a win apiece but the Shamrocks were markedly superior when they met in the quarter-final 10 days ago.

Sean Gaffney, one of the main men on the team for many years and the star player when they last won the Junior Championship 11 years ago, missed the quarter-final; if they are to bring home the Sean Leddy Cup, they will need everyone.

A repeat of the performance against Drumalee would probably be enough here for Kill but Belturbet won’t give them anywhere near the same space or time on the ball, as they showed in their round-four meeting.

The feeling is that the Rorys are coming into form at the right time and they get the nod to make the final – but there is likely to be very little in this one.