Belmont men under pressure in Birr clash with safety net gone

By Kevin Egan

For the majority of the eight clubs in action at the weekend, there’s still a little bit of leeway in the senior hurling championship, and dreams of Seán Robbins Cup glory won’t quite be completely out of sight if their game this weekend ends in defeat. Or to be more precise, that’s the case for seven of the eight clubs.

The exception to the rule is Belmont, who have left themselves without any further safety net after two defeats, and who are almost certainly in a ‘win or bust’ situation against Birr tomorrow evening (Saturday) in Lusmagh, making that the tie of the round.

For Birr, one draw in one start means that it’s still too early to tell what direction their championship is going, but they can make the short trip up the R439 with a reasonable amount of confidence that the league final wasn’t their true form.

As the year goes on they’ll need to find more scoring support for Eoghan Cahill up front and their lack of heft in the top half of the pitch may yet prove to be an issue. But as long as players like Barry Harding and Brian Watkins can engineer the time to pick out their forward deliveries, they’ll give players like Ailbe Watkins and Lochlann Quinn every chance.

Until David Nally comes back in, it’s hard to see Belmont win games with points alone, they just don’t get enough of them. But that said, if there’s a Birr player suited to taking on Oisín Kelly, it’s not immediately clear who that player might be. With two green flags or more, Belmont have a great chance here.

In the other game in the group, Shinrone have a little bit of round to make up after conceding that late sucker punch goal to Kinnitty, and the news that Killian Sampson is likely to miss out through injury weakens them further.

Perhaps even more of a red flag was how Shinrone conceded eight points from frees and coughed up many more dead ball chances, including the late sequence that led to Paddy Delaney’s goal. In many cases this was because they were second in a lot of the ruck battles and thus conceded possession, allowing Kinnitty to draw fouls.

The sharpness that was evident in their play over the past few years was missing, and while one game is far too early to write them off, Ballinamere are the team with form on their side going into this one.

In the other group, it’s a lot harder to get excited about the fixtures. Kilcormac-Killoughey have made it painfully clear that they’re not interested in starting the season slowly, and Tullamore will attest to how they aren’t likely to pull the brakes if they start running up a score on Seir Kieran.

It’s hard to see what the Clareen men can do here to try and unsettle Shane Hand’s side, and right now it feels like they would gladly accept an eight or ten point defeat and then regroup for a far more consequential game against St Rynagh’s in a fortnight.

St Rynagh’s, for their part, take on Tullamore in Kilcormac on Sunday evening and historically, this has been a fixture where they’ve been caught out a few times. Logically, they should have too much for the county town team, particularly if they can keep their discipline defensively and not let it turn into a battle of freetakers.

They might have preferred a slightly bigger field as Tullamore may look to turn this into an arm wrestle, where 1-14 or similar is the winning tally. But there should be enough experience in Jeffrey Lynskey’s team to avoid that, and to ensure a margin of six or seven points at the end.