Offaly club hurling championships set to kick off

By Kevin Egan

Minor heroics aside, 2022 has not been a good year for Offaly hurling at adult inter-county level, so there will be a lot of comfort for supporters this week as they get the chance to go back to grassroots and get behind their clubs in the first weekend of championship action.

By some distance, the meeting of Birr and Kilcormac-Killoughey in Rath tonight (Friday) leaps off the page as the glamour fixture. K-K have a golden generation of players that have almost all exited stage left, while their weighty presence on the county minor panel suggests that they have another golden generation waiting to step up to replace them. Their only problem is that those minors are ineligible in 2022, and frankly, are unlikely to be physically ready for at least another couple of seasons.

In contrast, there’s a lot of upside in this Birr team. Defensively they are not young, but they are still extremely capable. If a handful out of Morgan Watkins, Luke Nolan, Lochlainn Quinn and company can step up to add meaningful balance to a Birr attack that, in recent years, has relied too heavily on Eoghan Cahill, they’ll be right there in the mix.

For Ballinamere, there’s also a sense that 2022 is the time to deliver the goods, if they can hold things together at a time when the Durrow footballers will also feel that the door is open for a meaningful championship run.

Tonight (Friday) Ballinamere play Shinrone in Lusmagh, and while the men in red are sick of reading this, we’ll only stop writing it when it ceases to be relevant. They can hurl as well as anyone, but their issues are keeping their heads and delivering a big performance in a big do-or-die game. This is not that game and if they will play well and if Ballinamere are talented enough to win anyway, then the sky is the limit for them.

The ceiling is a lot lower for Kinnitty and Clodiagh Gaels, who do battle in Banagher. In a championship where more than half the clubs are realistic contenders for the big prize, neither of these are in that group, and realistically, there is every chance that the loser of this fixture will not win a game in 2022. Offaly’s newest club have a little bit more youth and zest, a little bit more scoring power, and a little bit more depth.

Kinnitty will presumably start with three excellent players in Conor Hardiman, James Dempsey and Shane Kinsella along the spine, and they will have plenty of knack and craft around them. That might be enough.

Then tomorrow (Saturday), St Brendan’s Park is the venue for the meeting of Belmont and Seir Kieran. One poor year in 2021 doesn’t suddenly make Belmont a bad team, but for as long as Oisín Kelly is absent with injury, they don’t pose anything like the same threat to opponents. For them, the name of the game is to survive in the championship long enough until he’s ready to tog out. If they are still standing by the time that he’s back to anything close to his best, a road to glory opens up.

Simple demographics continue to be the Clareen side’s most formidable opponent, and for that reason, it’s hard to fancy them in this group. They’ve got Belmont at the right time, however, and will probably be at their very best in round one, unlike their opponents, so they’ve a right chance here.

2021 finalists St Rynagh’s and Coolderry have their bye week this week, and they’ll no doubt be watching with interest on a few different terraces this weekend.