Clash of styles in store for Intermediate final
Who will follow in Fenagh's footsteps and lift the Intermediate Football Championship trophy?
A fascinating scenario awaits when these two teams come face to face in the Intermediate football final on Saturday. It looks as if there is a clash of styles here with a young Ballon team set to attack empty space in the efforts to win to come out on top.
Grange are fast too but as St Patricks found out when they tried to go through them they came up against a wall.
Alan Kelly, the Ballon manager, calls it as he sees it. It is no state secret.
“The whole year I have been trying to get it into them not to bring the ball into contact. It doesn’t suit a young and fresh team to take the ball into contact.
“It won’t suit going up senior if they were to get there. We have watched Grange a couple of times. They are dogged and die in their boots to be fair to them. If you keep going up the middle against them, they will punish you,” says the Rathvilly man who arrived in Ballon last year and led them to a Junior A title.
He points out that his side got a test of what to expect in the semi-final against Kildavin-Clonegal which they came through narrowly.
“Grange have plenty of big men. Our game plan is to keep out of contact, keep running and see if we can break them down that way. Every bit of training is a running game. It has worked up to now. Kildavin-Clonegal was a bigger test and a lot more physical than what we faced in the group. We got over that. I hope we can get over this one as well,” says Kelly.
Peter Cleere, the Grange manager, knows enough about Ballon too. Speaking after his side beat St Patricks in an outrageously tight semi-final on Friday, he speculated as to how the final could go.
“Ballon will be a huge challenge for us. They are raring to go. They are having a wonderful year down there. We will regroup from Friday. We have a few knocks but we will be ready to go again. Our ambitions this year was to get to a county final. We are delighted to get over the line tonight. Commiserations to St Patricks tonight. . It was nip and tuck all the way through,” he said.
Grange were on the ropes in the original semi-final the week before and looked to be in big trouble in the replay. They kept tipping away.
“I think we always play with that bit of grit and determination. You saw that tonight. Obviously we will be looking to bring that into a county final again,” noted Cleere.
This final has the potential to be as exciting as the two St Patricks and Grange games. If Ballon are to win it, they may have to win it more than once. This Grange team never accept defeat. Not until the final whistle is blown and they are heading back down the tunnel.
“We will be looking to come here and make it a really good contest. It will probably be a good game to watch. It will be a mixture of youth and age. The same as tonight. We have been around it now a good few years. We are hoping to push on. We are in a final and we will see how we go next week,” says Cleere.
Grange
