Brickeys welcome Kerry champions to Fraher Field

Just over twelve months after they lost their place in the Waterford Senior Football Championship for this year’s competition after seven years of competing, Brickeys recently secured their place in the senior championship for 2015 after a one year stint in the Intermediate grade.

The Bushy Park outfit were always favourite to win the win the championship in the Western division this year and duly and many made them certainties to beat Portlaw in the County Final, but the result was far from a certainty as the Tannery Men put it up to the Western Champions who had three points to spare at the end of the hour.

To get to Sunday’s game in Fraher Field, the Kerry side had to play just four games. Not much game time I here you say for the Kerry Champions coming into this game, but there is of course a very good reason, the championship in Kerry is run on an all county knockout basis.

Their first game saw they beat Saint Mary’s 1-12 to 1-9 and in round two things were much closer as they beat John Mitchell’s 1-9 to 1-8. Now in the semi finals Ardfert had their biggest win of the competition up to that point as they beat Castleisland Desmonds 1-12 to 0-10 and in the county final against Spa it was another five point win this time winning on a score line exactly the same as in the semi finals.

However, while sides in Kerry may not get many games in the championship, it is more that made up for in what are very competitive games.

Ardfert played in the third division this year in the all county league which began on the second last weekend of March and which still has one round of games still to play.

In total to date they have played ten games in the league and are currently in seventh place having won four, drawn one and loosing five games to date.

It is maybe worth noting that of the four games won to date, all four have come against sides that are below them in the table at this point and their last game is against a Scartaglin side that are currently sitting bottom of the pile. Their best result of those that are above them in the table was against Glenflesk who are currently third in the table a game that ended on a 0-14 each draw.

Brickeys head into this game after a good year.

In the league section of the Western Championship they had good wins over The Nire’s second string team, the Geraldine’s, Ballyduff Upper, Sliabh gCua and Dungarvan and suffered their only defeat against Ballinacourty second string team on a 1-8 to 0-10 score line in their third game.

In the Western semi final, they had a 0-17 to 2-8 win over Geraldine’s and in the Western Final they had a 0-9 to 0-5 victory over Ballinacourty which set up a county final recently at Walsh Park against Portlaw, a game they won 3-8 to 1-11.

The visitors to Fraher Field will be looking to David Griffin their goal scorer in the county final against Spa as well as Damien Wallace who missed that game through suspension and John Egan who played in the Hurling/Shinty international against Scotland that weekend for big games and will also be hoping to have Darren Dineen back in the side after injury.

Carthach Shalloe is Brickeys top scorer all year and they will be looking for him to find the range as often as possible this weekend if they are to advance. Others that they will need big games from include Conor and Shane McGrath, Conor Phelan, Diarmuid Tobin, Philip Walsh, Tommy Lynch Cormac O’Grady and Emmett Gaffney.

Football in Kerry is a religion and it is seldom if ever you see a poor team represent the county and this Ardfert team will travel to Dungarvan believing they can win.

Brickeys however will be playing in a setting that they will be very familiar with and with a large vocal home support (hopefully) it could well prove to be the difference in helping them move to the next phase of the competition.