Sallins steam train will prove tough to stop for Clara
by Kevin Egan
In the history of the Leinster Intermediate and Junior club football championships, it’s doubtful that there ever was a team that arrived into the last four with the reputation of this Sallins team.
In 2025 they reached the semi-finals of the Division One league in Kildare, and while that wouldn’t mean much in a county like Offaly where league competitions are a devalued currency, it means a lot more in most other jurisdictions, particularly east of Edenderry.
In championship football, they’ve played nine games in Kildare and Leinster, with no team getting within ten points of them so far. Their loss to Caragh in 2024 was considered a surprise, and Caragh went on to win a Leinster IFC and reach a senior quarter-final in Kildare this Summer, franking that form even further. Add in the extra sprinkle of magic that former Offaly minor manager Georgie Digan brings to the table, and it all becomes clear why some Kildare analysts say that they will be third favourites to win the Kildare senior championship next year, behind only Athy and their neighbours from Naas.
The bookmaking community have effectively deemed this a non-contest, and they are now joint-favourites for the All-Ireland alongside An Ghaeltacht, which is remarkable when you consider that Leinster teams have a truly appalling record in this competition, producing no outright winners and just three semi-final wins in total since it was first played in 2004. Against that backdrop, Clara will travel to Newbridge on Sunday afternoon, hoping to cause what would be the biggest shock of any club game featuring an Offaly team in 2025.
Logically, John Rouse and his selectors have a lot of work to do to plot a path past their Kildare opponents. In reality, the only possible starting point is to win the war between the two star lines for the respective sides – Clara’s half-backs against Sallins’ half-forwards. If Marcas Dalton can get the better of Kildare senior player Colm Dalton and Conor Doyle can continue his outstanding current form up against the free-scoring Cian Grimes, then they will still be in the mix going into the last ten minutes. At that stage, it’ll come down to the bench, where again, Sallins have game-changers if they need them.
A lot needs to go right, but if there is a silver lining for Clara, it’s that unlike Tullamore, there is no pressure on them whatsoever. In a world where there are hundreds of post-match interviews every year that feature players and coaches talking about being “written off” on the basis of some random pundit somewhere predicting a one- or two-point defeat, Clara can say with some justification that they are being completely written off by the wider footballing world here. We’ll see on Sunday (Cedral St. Conleth’s Park, 2pm) what they do with that information.