Kilrossanty's league final win has them moving in the right direction.

The question is often asked which club can break the stronghold of Stradbally, The Nire and Ballinacourty in the County senior football championship.

Each year barring that two of the big three are paired together in the quarter final stages of the championship, it’s a fairly safe bet that the big three will all reach the last four. The only thing to be decided is often which of the two will be paired together in the penultimate round of the championship and which club outside the top three will get to meet the third of the threeo.

While little separates most clubs in the championship, with each able to beat the other on a given day, its possibly fair to suggest that if the big three is to be broken up, it is one of three other clubs that will do so.

Clashmore were going great guns a few years back, but they had one bad year which saw them relegated at the end of the campaign. However, their stay away from the senior championship was a short lived one, as they came back up at the first attempt. This year they reached the semi finals and it was till The Nire scored a third killer goal just after the break that the eventual winners were able to pull away.

An Rinn are another club moving in the right direction. They have some very good experienced players and also have some exciting young footballers coming through. It is expected that in the coming year or two that some of An Gaeltacht’s victorious minor football winning team from 2011 will make the step up. They had a big chance to make a break through in 2010 but a little bit of over confidence saw them loose out at the quarter final stages of the championship at the quarter final stages.

Some feel that if any club was to break up the dominance of the big three, that it will be Kilrossanty.

Its not all that long ago that the side from under the shadow of the Comeragh Mountains were fighting a relegation battle against their near neighbours John Mitchells. Kilrossanty won on the day, but playing in such a game might have proven to be the wake up call they needed and wake them up from a sleep that they had appeared to be falling into in the years previous to this.

Had Kilrossanty dropped down, it would be interesting to see what would have happened. John Mitchells have not managed to move up since, but have played in a county final. Would the same have happened to Kilrossanty? It’s hard to know.

In recent years they have been moving in the right way under the guidance of former Waterford senior football manager, John ‘Jackson’ Kiely.

They have appeared in the finals of a number of the county boards secondary competitions in recent years, collecting some silverware, the most recent coming as recent as last weekend when they beat Ballinacourty on their own patch at Lemybrien.

They won the game with four points to spare, but it could well have been a totally different story.

Ballinacourty got off to a rip roaring start. They hit early points from Gary Hurney, Jason O’Brien, Mark Gorman and Shane Briggs to give them an early lead, but it was not a case of Tús maith leath na hoibre.

Kilrossanty came storming back. Owen Cummins and Tommy Prendergast hit points which saw Ballinacourty loose half the value of their lead. William Brazil is a player that we have seen sprung from the bench a number of times lately in the championship. He started this game at corner forward and showed that he has the making of becoming a vital player for the Comeragh Men, hitting a goal half way through the opening half.

This score spurred on Kilrossanty and Paul Whyte hit two points shortly after Brazil’s goal and David Power followed up with a point to give his side a 1-5 to 0-4 lead with time in the opening half ticking down.

Ballinacourty suffered a major blow six minutes from the break when Gary Hurney picked up a serious injury and needed to be removed from the field of play on a stretcher and was then transferred for treatment in Waterford.

Paul Whyte in the time that remained hit two further points for Kilrossanty and Mark Ferncombe hit one as Kilrossanty went in at the break holding a deserved 1-7 to 0-5 lead.

Kilrossanty began the second half as they had ended the first, in total control. Points from Paul Whyte, Michael Walsh and Niall Walsh were hit early in the second half before Alan Quinn got inside the Ballinacourty defence to hit a second Kilrossanty goal.

Points from Stephen Prendergast and Paul Whyte followed for Kilrossanty who were now in total control of the games proceedings.

However, it was at this stage that they took their foot of the gas, and could have been made pay dearly.

Points from Mark Ferncombe, Richie Foley and Joey Power were hit for Ballinacourty to reduce Kilrossanty’s lead and when Laurence Hurney and David Collins followed up with a pair of quick fire goals, it was looking that Ballinacourty were coming more back into the game and maybe could get something from the game.

Mark Ferncombe hit another point fro Ballinacourty but it was but a consolation score, as Kilrossanty were able to hold out for a 2-13 to 2-9 victory.

Both of these sides made changes to the respective sides beaten in their final championship game of the year. Kilrossanty started with possibly the slightly stronger of the two sides, but the loss of Gary Hurney towards the end of the first half was a massive blow for Ballinacourty.

The question now is can Kilrossanty built on this win. Many will be hoping that they can. If they do manage to build on it, then they could well make a telling impact on the senior football championship in 2013.