By Cahair O'Kane, IRISH NEWS
https://www.irishnews.com/gaa/gaelic-football/newry-could-be-an-uncomfortable-cauldron-for-kilmacud-L24OFUKMDFFAJLGMN266TBWYLU/
January 05, 2024 at 6:14PM GMT
All-Ireland Club SFC semi-final: Glen v Kilmacud Crokes (tomorrow, 3.45pm, Páirc Esler, live on TG4) WHAT sense to rake the old ground here? You know as well as we all do what happened in Croke Park twelve months ago.
Sunday is a new day. A new year. A new venue. A new game.
The shadow of the 2022/23 final will shorten as the hour’s football goes on because few club games in the history of the All-Ireland club series have been as readily awaited as this one.
It will have its own life, its own story, albeit not one fully detachable from the manner in which the Leinster champions got their hands on the Andy Merrigan Cup.
The final few seconds overshadowed all that had gone before and it is in the minute beforehand the margins were at their most evident. Sixty-two minutes gone and the ball drops right in front of Conor Glass but just slightly too fast and slightly too close to his heel. On any human level you’d have given Conor Ferris his moment of redemption after what had happened against Kilcoo the year previous but it was still one of a number of big match-winning chances for Glen.
The 45 that we’ve seen the high-behind shot of a million times ends up with Conleth McGuckian’s shot skipping inches wide, Ryan Dougan’s swipe at it just ill-timed by enough to save the Crokes from the unthinkable.
Conor Ferris’ displacement by David Higgins is one of the changes in personnel to Kilmacud since then. Glen will feel they can attack his looping kickouts.
Speedy corner-back Michael Mullin and workman forward Cillian O’Shea are both travelling for the year as is Conor Casey, the very 16th man himself.
An outfit like Kilmacud haven’t struggled for numbers to replace them but the impact off their bench has been weakened. The biggest difference in them, however, has undoubtedly been the returns to fitness of Paul Mannion and form of Shane Walsh.
Mannion has been the best club footballer in Ireland for the last three years and yet effectively missed both of their last two All-Ireland campaigns, coming in as a surprise starter for last year’s final but having no impact on the game really.
Ryan Dougan and Michael Warnock both had fine games in shackling them last year but they could both be asked very different questions in Newry tomorrow.
Glen will have no fear of this challenge, though. They’ve put Ciaran McFaul back in from last year.
So many of their big guns had their best game of the year right when it was needed in a top-drawer Ulster final, the quality of which surpassed anything Kilmacud have been involved in so far this season.
Perhaps that’s a warning in itself. They were far too good for Ballyboden in the Dublin final, eased to an historic third Leinster title in-a-row even if Naas made a bit of a fist of it this time.
In between the pangs of injustice over last year, Glen will have been riddled too by the hurt of a glorious chance missed. They were the better side for the majority of the final but when the big chances came their way, the Maghera side didn’t take them.
They haven’t been brilliant every week this year but in every game, they’ve shown how much they continue to learn about winning tight games.
You expect them to make an uncomfortable cauldron out of Páirc Esler.
It just feels like this is Glen’s time.
By Fri 5th Jan
