Kelly praises the dedication of the Kingscourt players

By Niall Gartland

THE personnel may have changed somewhat, but the commitment levels have remained very much intact.

Kingscourt are bidding for the back-to-back when they take on Gowna in Sunday’s Cavan Senior Championship showpiece, and their manager Colin Kelly is quick to credit the application of his team.

It’s a repeat of last year’s final, which Kingscourt won by 2-16 to 0-13, but Gowna have been supremely impressive en route to Sunday as demonstrated by their surprisingly comfortable win over Crosserlough at the semi-final stage.

Kingscourt have been motoring nicely themselves and deservedly overcame Division One champions Cuchulainns on their last day out to book their final spot, and manager Colin Kelly outlined some of the changes from last year.

“We had to navigate players being away. In the semi-final, we had five changes in personnel from the semi-final last year, so we have a lot of new bodies in. Damian McCormack and Caimhin McGee, to name two younger lads, hadn’t started a championship match last year. Caimhin came on in the final, while Damian didn’t play any minutes.

“We’ve had a lot of prominent senior players away in the build-up to the championship. We had Padraig Faulkner, who was just back home prior to the quarter-finals.

“The one thing that has been rock-solid throughout has been the commitment of the players to what we’re trying to do. We qualified through the group comfortably. I’m not saying any of the wins were comfortable, but we won our first three games, which put us in a good position.

“We won a tough game against Ramor, and Mullahoran proved difficult, so they’ve been tough games. But we went into the last game already qualified, which was good. There are different elements to how it has gone, but overall, we’re just pleased to be where we’re at.”

While Kingscourt were much too strong for Gowna in last year’s final, their opponents do have experience of winning on the big day having won the 2022 and 2023 finals. Moreover, they were so impressive in their semi-final win over Crosserlough, surging to a 2-18 to 1-6 victory.

“Yeah, it was a big score to put up. Crosserlough are a decent team with a lot of good players, and it was an impressive display, to be honest, to win as comfortably as they did.”

And while Kingscourt didn’t have it all their own way on their last day out against Cuchulainns, Kelly says that the quality of opposition must also be considered.

“I suppose the first half was decent and we were very happy with the way things went. We were probably a bit disappointed with the first 15 minutes of the second half, but you have to appreciate what was at stake for Cuchulainn’s and how good a side they are. You have to recognise how much they influenced that first 10 or 15 minutes of the second half, rather than just saying we were poor.

“Other than that, the performance was decent. We scored 3-13 and there were lots of good aspects to our play, so it was something we were happy with. It was a tricky enough draw when it presented itself.”