Kilmeena will enliven Mayo senior championship in 2024
THE Lahardane flag still remains hoisted as we bid adieu to the club championships of 2023 and look forward to 2024.
Who knows where the journey will take Eddie Conroy and his band of warriors. Suffice to say, no matter where the journey ends, they have brought a ray of sunshine to club football, which has been going through a hard time since the Covid-19 pandemic stopped us all in our tracks in 2020, the year the provincial competition was shelved.
For this annual review, the senior championship is my main focus. Ballina Stephenites were worthy champions but the competition didn’t exactly set the club scene ablaze, which in turn could reflect on Mayo’s journey in 2024 through the National Football League and the All-Ireland championship.
The disappointment really of last year was the failure of the Mayo champions to make a serious dent in the All-Ireland club championship, Ballina’s bid for a fourth Connacht title ending on a miserable day in Salthill, where Corofin’s guile and experience tilted the scales in their favour, and deservedly so.
The subsequent defeat by the Galway champions to Roscommon kingpins St. Brigid’s in the Connacht final puts the Mayo champions well behind in the queue for provincial honours, let alone an All-Ireland title, which came to the north Mayo capital for the one and only time in 2005.
The failure of a Mayo team to win a Connacht club title since Castlebar Mitchels claimed their fifth in 2015 also raises questions about the direction in which football is going within the county, Ballintubber (2018) and Castlebar Mitchels (2019) losing to Corofin, while Knockmore lost the 2021 final to Padraig Pearses of Roscommon.
Ballina do have youth on their side and that has to be factored in when assessing their performance in 2023, and winning a county title after a 16-year gap has to be seen in a positive light. We can only hope that manager Niall Heffernan can build on that, but the general prognosis of Mayo club football at senior level following the 2023 campaign is that it needs rehabilitation after what was one of the poorest of finals in decades.
Sixteen teams were in the starting stalls when the tape went up and the last eight to qualify was very much on predictable lines, although it must be said there were a few who unseated the jockey. Despite one or two refusals, the last eight came down to Ballina, Castlebar, Breaffy, Knockmore, Ballintubber, Westport, Belmullet and Charlestown.
It gave us two fascinating semi-finals, a central Mayo derby between Breaffy and Castlebar Mitchels and a north Mayo derby between Knockmore, champions in 2020 and '21, and Ballina Stephenites, the latter seemingly coming into form at the right time as they went in search of their first senior title since 2007.
RESURGENCE
The resurgence of Breaffy did bring some element of intrigue to the champions, with Aidan O’Shea finding a new source of energy to guide his team to the final, their victory over Westport in the quarterfinal without doubt the seminal moment for them in the championship.
After beating a Castlebar team that had rode their luck just once too often, escaping the clutches of both Aghamore and Ballyhaunis, there was a feeling that it had to be Breaffy surely.
The pity was that they never showed up for the final against Ballina, and losing a final for the fifth time in 10 years raises the question as to whether they can ever achieve their goal of winning the senior championship.
That said, other clubs will pay more attention to them next year.
Meanwhile, the Ballina-Knockmore semi-final never lived up to its star billing, Ballina wining a dour contest 0-10 to 0-7 in a game which finished with three players being sent off following a bust-up just before the final whistle. Ballina's Jack Irwin was given a reprieve when he appealed his red card and was available for the final.
The enigma of the championship had to be Castlebar Mitchels, so many young seedlings planted in the rich soil of hope but failing to ripen when the time came for them to bear fruit. Yet given the quality that is coming through at Under 21 and minor level, surely it is only a matter of time before they blossom. There was some comfort for Mitchels as they were crowned Under 21 A champions after a cracking final against Claremorrisx.
Ballintubber had one leg in the semi-final but they took generosity to a new level when they presented Castlebar with an early Christmas bonus, relinquishing a four-point lead, having Cillian O’Connor red-carded when the clock was less than a minute from going into the red, and conceding a ridiculous goal in the opening minute of the first period the extra-time that was needed to decide who would go through to meet Breaffy in the semi-final.
That honour fell to Castlebar Mitchels, but they too failed to fire in the last four encounter, leaving you with the sense that despite all the odds, Breaffy would leave us all – scribes, that is – trying to explain why we never really had faith in their ability to win a county title.
RESPECT
Breaffy earned huge respect but it was Ballina who walked away with the Moclair Cup having fallen short in 2022, when they were beaten by first-time senior champions Westport.
To finish on a positive note, the arrival of Kilmeena will certainly bring a new impetus to the championship in 2022.
They have been a remarkable team of late, winning an All-Ireland junior title, reaching an intermediate final the following season and then coming back this year to win the intermediate title and graduate to senior championship football – all in a space of four years.
They might well have added another string to their magnificent bow by claiming a provincial intermediate title but the courage and bravery of Darragh Keaveney was not rewarded on this occasion, his attempt to win the semi-final against Monivea-Abbey in normal time from the penalty spot thwarted by the Galway goalkeeper, a point just sperating the sides in the end, but the Kilmeena man, as his manager said afterwards, made the right decision to go for goal.
'He who dares, wins' was my headline on the county final preview last year. Let us hope teams live up to it next season, and I think Kilmeena may just provide the injection that a slumbering championship needs to wake up some of the old dogs that are beginning to struggle on that hard road. That said, there are plenty of players around that will surely attract the interest of Kevin McStay.
As mentioned at the start, Lahardane are the one team left standing as we roll into 2024. They bounced back from the despair of relegation from the intermediate grade last year in fine style and are now just 60 minutes away from a place in the All-Ireland junior final.
The Christmas celebrations will be muted for the Nephinsiders as their All-Ireland semi-final looms early in the new year but if they go on to emulate Kilmeena and win the national junior prize, there will be one hell of a party back in Lahardane and Bofeenaun to make up for the quiet festive period.
My selections for 2023: team of the year – Lahardane; players of the year – Jack Carney (Kilmeena) and Sam Callinan (Ballina Stephenites); manager of the year – Eddie Conroy (Lahardane).