Countdown is on to New Oak's Leinster Final
New Oak captain David O'Shea is confident he can lift the LFA Junior Cup tomorrow afternoon. Photo: michaelorourkephotography.ie
We’re just over 24 hours away from kick-off in the LFA Junior Cup final between New Oak and Evergreen. This match has been a long time coming for New Oak, they’ve been knocking on the door for the last four years. In 2022, New Oak headed to North End in the semi-final without the suspended Kelan Gaffney and injured David O’Shea and took the hosts all the way to extra-time, being denied by a late late winner deep into injury time. Most New Oak fans will argue that time should have been up. In 2023, they were struggling with injuries, and Dean Kelly away in Canada at the time, as they headed up to Trim Celtic where they fell short, losing 2-0. Last year, they found themselves in all sorts of bother as they picked up three red cards in their Quarter-Final against Parkvilla and saw themselves in trouble heading into a semi-final against Wexford Bohs as they lost out 3-0, being sucker punched by three early goals. This year, they have had no such issues. They’re heading into the final with a whole squad available, and whilst in previous years, the team may have been predictable, this year there seems to be a lot more competition for places. The only absentee will be David Doyle who is cup tied having only joined midway through the season. New Oak manager, Gavin Dowling admitted after the semi-final that this is the best position they’ve been in and it’s hard to disagree with him, they haven’t got any suspensions and any knocks are likely to have gone away by Sunday.
New Oak captain David O’Shea says there’s a wide variety of emotions going through the camp ahead of the biggest game of their careers. “The mood in the camp is very good, positive, confident, excited, nervous, a mixture of feelings but it’s really great to be involved in it. I suppose looking back to the Tallaght game, there was a great deal of relief just to get past the semi-final voodoo. Some people thought we were just destined to fall at the semi-final stage. I’m delighted with how the Quarter-Final and the semi-final went, two tough games on the road. I thought we were excellent both days and we’re building towards the final. Momentum is there, it helps when you’re playing well and training is going well, and everyone is getting game time, the substitutions are having a huge impact on games in recent times as well so everyone is roaring together and things are good.”
He feels like everything is falling into place for the Paupish. “We’ve been putting in the work and we’ve been building, building for a good few years now and I felt that we deserve to be here, we’ve been unlucky, and I feel like things are just falling into place this season. Just looking back at all the Leinster games, I feel like we’ve been really really good and we’re getting a bit more acute as a team and when you get to the latter stages of this competition, a lot of it is down to game management and acuteness and biding your time, soaking up pressure, playing when it’s time to play, so I just feel like we’ve learned from past experiences. Given the time of year it is, and the traffic jam of fixtures, I suppose there’s a few niggles which you can’t avoid, but we have a clean bill of health, no suspensions, so we’re where we want to be and we’re really looking forward to it. Delighted to be in the final but also know that it’s there for us to win. We just want to take it, they don’t come round too often. It’s the best opportunity we’ve had in years, given the squad, given the lack of injuries, I just feel like it’s all falling into place. It feels right, I’m quietly confident.”
There’s not a whole lot between the two sides, in fact Paddy Power can’t separate the two, with both having identical odds at 6/4 for the match, which says everything about how close this match will be. O’Shea knows the danger that Evergreen pose. “They’re obviously dominating the Kilkenny League for I don’t know many years, they had a good run in the FAI Junior Cup this year, but I don’t think the quality of the league in Kilkenny is as strong as ours but saying that I’d know a lot of the Evergreen players, I’d know quite a few of them, they’re very very strong all over the park, I couldn’t pinpoint a weakness. We need to be at our best and if we’re not at our best, we won’t win, it’s as black and white as that. We need to be at it and if we are, we’ll win the game. Played Kilkenny twice in the Oscar Traynors and a lot of the squad was made up of Evergreen players with a few here and there from other clubs but apart from that haven’t faced them in a few years. There shouldn’t be much in this game whatsoever, should be a tight affair. We have a good idea of what way they play but they’re well able to mix it up, they don’t stick to a certain system.”
He knows how much this victory would mean to the club. They’ve won everything over the last few years in Carlow, they’ve done back to back quadruples, they’ve won numerous league titles. Their trophy tally for the past four years stands at 11, including the KCLR Carlow Shield they won this year. This is the one that has eluded them. O’Shea is fully aware of that fact and cites the game as the biggest in the club’s history. “It would be absolutely massive. It’s the biggest game in the club’s history without a shadow of a doubt. Domestically in the Carlow League, we’ve been quite successful in recent years but we’ve been knocking on the door in the Leinster now for a good while and we’re in the final now so I really think it’s our time. We’re up against a monster of a club in Evergreen but we know what we have to do. I really feel if we are on it, that we can beat any junior team in the country. We’ll need to be tuned in, we’ll need to be well organised, we’ll need to be sharp, and with any cup final, you’ll need a bit of luck and decisions to go your way, but we can’t control that so we need to focus on ourselves and I know the lads are ready and raring to go. It’s hard to describe how much it would mean to the club, the players, the supporters. It would just be a testament to all the work that has gone on over the last few years, all the hard work in the background nobody sees.”
Assistant Manager Eddie Shaw echoed those thoughts and says it’s the biggest game they’ll ever play. “It’s the biggest game most of these players are going to play in since they started playing soccer. Lee Murphy, David O’Shea, Cian Dowling, Daryl Coleman, those four were involved in the Oscar Traynor win in 2018, which was an unbelievable achievement, this would be even bigger though because it’s with your club, it’s with your teammates, it’s the biggest game these boys are going to play in. It would be massive for New Oak and for the Carlow League. To have a Carlow League team win the Leinster Junior Cup is something that’s never been done before, Crettyard were beaten in the final a few years ago, we’ve been beaten in a few semis, Hanover were beaten in a few semis, so it would be massive for Carlow Soccer.”
Round 1: 3-0 vs Corach Ramblers (H)
Round 2: 8-1 vs Park Celtic (A)
Round 3: 2-1 vs Quay Celtic (H)
Last 32: 1-0 vs Wexford Bohs AET (H)
Last 16: 2-0 vs North End (H)
Quarter-Final: 1-0 vs Jobstown (A)
Semi-Final: 2-1 vs Tallaght (A)
