Senior Football Championship profiles
Attennding the Carlow GAA Club Football Launch in Netwatch Cullen Park were Cormac Hogan (Manager) and Aaron O'Byrne (Sales Executive, Michael Lyng Hyundai Motors, Sponsors) with Jim Bolger (Carlow GAA Chairman), and Back - Josh Moore (Rathvilly), Danny Moran (Tinryland), Eoin McDonald (Fenagh), Stephen Reilly (Palatine). Front - Edward Byrne (Mount Leinster Rangers), Mark Furey Éire Óg), Aaron Amond (Old Leighlin) and Ciaran Cunningham (Bagenalstown Gaels)
The Michael Lyng Motors Senior Football Championship begins this weekend and ahead of the action getting underway, HARRY SHORTHOSE checked in with all clubs to discuss their hopes and ambitions for this year
Josh Moore (Captain)
JJ, Kevin Byrne, Rory and Mark Curran, it’s their third year with us now. We’ve also got a goalkeeper coach in, Gavin Dowling. They’re very good at managing loads and player welfare.
Eric Molloy did his cruciate so he’s gone for the year. Huge loss. We’ve got a couple of young lads coming up there, that’s the good thing about Rathvilly, we do tend to get one or two but we also lose one or two. Barry John (Molloy) is a loss from last year so there’s two gone but I’m sure we’ll have two new lads to fill those positions.
It was good, a bit drawn out with the way it is, you’re three or four months without a game. So it’s hard, you can get challenge games but there’s no real replica of getting a Championship match in. Training is going good and we hope to build on it. It’s frustrating as a player, you’re playing in the league and then there’s such a big break until Championship so it’s almost harder to keep lads motivated because the end goal is so far away.
Back to back is obviously the goal. It’s never easy getting there but you have to set your sights on that, and then whatever happens after that in Leinster, I suppose we’ll reevaluate.
Well every team is an obstacle, we have one next Sunday against Rangers. After winning the Hurling I’m sure they’ll be flying and they’ll be looking to turn us on the first week but we just have to take each week as it comes and hopefully we can improve every week.
Eire Óg, they’re in the long grass, their last win was three years ago.
Mark Furey (Captain)
Richie Mahon and Cormac Mullins. They were appointed last year and this is their first year over the senior team. It’s a very young team as well, so the two guys Richie and Cormac have actually coached a lot of the younger players coming through. With Turlough [O’Brien], we won one Championship in three years. I don’t really know what happened but the boys are involved now and we’re going well, the change is good, intensity in training is up.
A few changes, a few lads went travelling, Jordan Morrissey went travelling, Eoghan Ruth and Chris Blake are back to provide experience and it’s a nice blend at the moment.
At the minute we’re not thinking too far ahead, we’re focusing purely on Old Leighlin. We know the dangers they have, the players they have, Mikey Bambrick, Aaron Amond, Sean Bambrick, these players can defeat any team in the country. We’ll take it game by game and see where it goes from there.
Probably the fact that the Championship is so short, so it’s about keeping everyone healthy and on the field injury free. The quick turnover of games is tough so it’s hard to keep everyone fit and healthy.
Rathvilly are the current holders so it’s hard to look past Rathvilly
Aaron Amond (Captain)
Brian Lonergan is the manager with John Hayden and Declan Kelly, same as last year.
Niall Roche back from injury. There’s one or two boys who couldn’t make it home this year but apart from that the rest of the panel is the same bar one or two.
It’s been tough at times with the hurling going on and the minors have been hurling too, so we’ve probably been struggling with a lack of numbers at times for our games so far. Overall, the last couple of weeks have been very positive.
Win the Championship, simple as. I feel like we’ve a very good panel so that's not unrealistic. The hurlers winning with Naomh Bríd will definitely help as well. We probably feel like we underachieved come the latter stages of the Championship last year and we have a stronger panel this year we feel with lads back from injury.
All the other teams, anyone can beat each anyone on any given day, the level isn’t that far apart from each other so the challenge for us is staying consistent throughout, not doing brilliantly one week and not performing the next.
It’s hard to look past Rathvilly, Eire Óg, Pal
Eddie Byrne
Chris Conway is back again this year, having that one year under the belt is good, he’s getting used to the players so second year you’d hope he has that figured out by now.
Wouldn’t be a huge amount of turnover on our squads. We’ve not lost anyone, maybe one but I’m not sure if he’s going to play yet, he’s over 40 so he hasn’t committed yet. Someone like Ruairi Murphy, who was playing with us on the weekend, someone like Kyle Nolan, they might make an impact at some point.
First of all we need to target getting out of the group, we’ve got the tougher group on paper, some of the heavyweights in there. If we can pick up a win over any of those three we’ll be hoping to make it out of the group and just take it from there, in the knockout stages anything can happen. I don’t think there’s any point in entering a competition if we’re not in it to win it. We won the hurling at the weekend and there’s a decent break until Leinster so we should be able to give this a good go and concentrate fully on it but of course we have to deal with turning round and playing a whole new sport with a whole new set of rules, a few of the lads haven’t seen or played under the new rules yet. To have the ability to grind out results in close matches like we did in the hurling will be of benefit to some lads too going into a competitive Championship like the Football Championship.
I’ll throw my hat at Old Leighlin, they’ve some big names and they’re sprinkled with talented footballers all over the pitch Biggest Challenge/Obstacle: Getting out of the group, adapting to all the new rules
Stephen Reilly
Paud O’Dwyer and Eddie McGarry, this is their second year and they’re staunch Palatine men who played for the club all their lives
We’re fairly lucky in Pal that we have a massive juvenile system so there’s lots of lads coming up from underage into senior and we have a few this year and not many lads have left so it’s the same panel as last year
The league is always hit and miss because we’re missing so many players with county and Hurling and college or whatever so the league was up and down, it’s only the last couple of weeks that we start to pick up again
Win the Championship. We were very unlucky last year, we got to the final last year and went to a replay so hopefully we can get back in that position and win it. No loss is easy, especially when it goes to a replay, of course we’ll take whatever learnings we can from the game but we don’t want to be hyperfixed on it either. Just focus on the first game of the Championship and take it day by day.
The short season in the Championship is going to be hard so the biggest challenge is going to be keeping everyone fit. If anyone picks up any kind of niggle, it means they could miss the whole Championship so it’s about focusing and trying to keep everyone right.
Rep: Ciaran Cunningham (Vice-Captain)
TC Clarke, Hamish Beaton and Tom McDonnell, TC and Hamish are with us years and years, we had management who were with us earlier in the season who left and we had to pull out of the league and we were a bit stop start of a situation and thankfully the lads were willing to pick up the slack. They know us inside out so we’ll continue as usual.
Fairly similar to last year, TJ Darcy is a good young lad and getting better every week, young Andrew Casey is getting better and better. Much the same as last year.
Moreso this year with the new rules to get to grips with it’s been tough but we’ll be good to go, we’ve plenty of experience in the team so we won’t let that phase us.
First off try and get out of the group and build on that, take it game after game, there’s no point in looking beyond getting out of the group because that’s tough in itself.
Adjusting to the new rules and not making any silly fouls that you’re getting a 45 yard free up the pitch, just to get clued in from the get-go.
ire Óg will beat either Pal or Rathvilly by about five points in the final to win it
Eoin McDonald (Vice-Captain)
Darrach and Paul, same as last year, we really get on well the players and management
There’s a couple carrying knocks from the hurling, but apart from that we’ve James Cummins who’s come back from Australia
Difficult but all we can do is what we can do with the numbers we have
Being newly promoted the first step is to stay up. For us we’re just coming from playing hurling into playing football but if we get some momentum, hopefully things can go quite well for us. It’s going to be very hard because there’s fierce competition but we believe we have the talent and believe we have the talent so it’s just about showing that on the pitch. We feel like the hurlers who came back are very fit which is great but it’s hard going from having ten players to having a full team, trying to turn it round in ten weeks.
Stay up, that’s the real challenge, with being a small club with small numbers we need to have everyone available so that’s the real challenge, getting our best 15 on the pitch.
It’s always going to be hard to beat Rathvilly, Eire Óg, Pal, Tinryland, Old Leighlin look strong, Mount Leinster Rangers can beat anyone on their day, Bagenalstown have a young team too
Danny Moran (Captain)
Eddie Dowling and Mick Kehoe are taking over the management this season. So far it’s been fantastic, we had a good league campaign winning the league so we’re just looking forward to the Championship.
Couple of guys have left for Australia and a couple of minors have broken into the team which is fantastic, it’s been a breath of fresh air
It does and it doesn’t [their league win giving them momentum], coming in off the back of the league it is great but there’s been such a long wait between the league and the Championship that it’s hard to stay motivated when you’re not playing competitive games so we’re just looking forward to next week and starting the Championship. It does give you confidence, winning becomes a habit. There’s only two competitions for football teams in Carlow, the League and the Championship and we have ambitions of going and winning the Championship.
We want to go far in the Championship, it’s been a long time since we’ve won the Championship. We’re not looking past Fenagh in the first round though, that’s our main goal. We feel like we can go one step further than we did in 2022 and 2023 and get over the line, we’re confident but we’re not underestimating any team.
You can never look past the first game. If you don’t get a good start in the group, with the way the group is set up in Carlow, you’re on the back foot every week. We know we have to do our job and get over the line.
