Best two teams are in the county senior football final

This time last year, I was writing about how good the championship had been to date. We’d had some real humdingers in the knockout stages. Unfortunately, the final turned out to be a bit of a damp squib.

I’m hoping for a reversal of that this year. It hasn’t been the best championship so far but I’d be very hopeful we’re in for a cracker of a final. Despite both Oran and Boyle bringing Pearses to extra-time, I think it’s hard to argue against the fact that we’ve the best two teams ready to battle it out in the Hyde in a few weeks' time.

Looking at the semi-finals from last weekend, of the four teams, only Pearses really performed to a high level. Their game with Faithleach’s threatened to be a close contest for the first 15 minutes. Then the champions hit the Ballyleague lads with two sucker-punches in quick succession. The goals came from two lads who were probably the front-runners for Player of the Match honours — Conor Ryan and Jack Tumulty.

I’d have given it to Tumulty. In the period when the game was in the melting pot, he made the biggest impact. He’s beginning to add more consistent finishing to his superb running game and, as such, is becoming a big player for Pearses.

They have plenty of those, however. All over the field, the defending champions have strong ball carriers who, more often than not, take the right option when on the ball.

It’s simple but very effective football to watch. Their support runners are constant, as evidenced by both of those first-half goals. Those goals really knocked the stuffing out of Faithleach’s. Up to that point, they were probably the better team with the scores level despite Pearses playing with the aid of the remnants of Storm Amy.

A couple of players stood out on the Faithleach’s side. Cian Glennon showed plenty of good moments early on, in particular, although he’ll be disappointed at how little ball he got on once Pearses took over in the middle of the field.

Darren Nerney was excellent throughout at centre-back and was Faithleach’s best player. He can count himself very unfortunate not to have had a goal or at least a penalty when Faithleach’s were in the ascendancy early on — he was pulled back for what was a stone-wall foul as he was about to palm a ball to the net.

While there’s no doubting that Pearses would eventually have wrestled back control, a goal at that stage would have given Faithleach’s a better foothold in the game, something to hold on to and maybe avoid the hammering they eventually suffered. As it is, however, they’ll be disappointed at how little impact they made once Pearses got ahead.

Pearses are a seriously impressive outfit. Another player who’d been out injured long-term (I forgot to mention him last week), Conor Harley, made a very welcome return at the weekend. He’s a really good footballer and it underlines, once again, the fantastic strength-in-depth that Pearses have.

Looking at their showing at the weekend, while I picked Tumulty and Ryan out as probably the top two performers, they had another five or six players who played really well too. Eoin Colleran looks really sharp inside, Declan Kenny is getting better with each game. Mark Richardson, Conor Lohan and Seán Canning are having terrific championship seasons.

Pearses are a team with a great balance and, crucially, with a habit of winning. The only remarkable thing is that they probably won’t be favourites for the county final.

That’s because they’re coming up against a Brigid’s team laced with an unbelievable amount of talent. The only worry with them is that they have yet to catch fire this year. Still, it must be great to be in the county final without having peaked yet.

The closeness of their semi-final with Clann on Sunday owed more to their own sloppiness than to great play from their big rivals. Brigid’s seemed to be a touch off it in terms of their skill execution. They were just a fraction off it in a lot of areas. Had they had their eye in, they could have put Clann to the sword much earlier.

That might seem harsh on Clann, but I do think they were further off Brigid’s than the scoreline suggested. They had some good performers, but not enough. They didn’t have enough penetration around the middle third in particular, i.e. they were unable to run at the Brigid’s men and create overlaps. Now, that’s a problem that most teams who come up against Brigids encounter, such is the level of athleticism the Kiltoom-based team possess.

I really like the two corner-backs for Clann, Paddy Gavin and Tom Lennon. They’re really tight markers who can drive out well with the ball too. In writing last week, I said that Clann would need a big performance from Ultan Harney if they were to have any chance of causing an upset. They certainly got that. He was immense and involved in most of what was good about Clann.

Seeing him go off late on with a jaw injury was fiercely disappointing. He has been incredibly unfortunate with injuries, and I hope this one isn’t too bad.

On the opposite side, we were once again reminded of just how good Brian Stack is. When was the last time he had a bad game? High fielding, great tackles, kicking a point, good passing — just another average day for the best player in the county.

All around him, however, Brigid’s are stuttering. Some good moments, yes, but they just haven’t clicked into gear yet. It’s a great way for them to be going into a final. Paul McGrath, Ruaidhrí Fallon, Ben O’Carroll, Brian Derwin and Conor Hand had some big plays for them. If they can stumble upon the consistency of performance that Pearses are achieving, then they’ll be extremely difficult to beat.