Ballinacourty and The Nire Clash For Conway Cup

Not for the first time in recent years, the destination where the Conway Cup will reside for the next twelve months will be decided by a shootout between two of the big three football sides within the county.

The Nire qualified for this final with a victory over Kilrossanty last Saturday evening. The two sides had met a number of times in the knockout section of the championship in recent years and produced some highly exciting battles but this latest clash could hardly be described as an exciting game.

The Nire in fact have not played to their full potential in recent games but they will be the first to tell you that knockout games are there to be won and the performance served up is not always that important.

Coincidently in their two knockout games they played without Conor Gleeson who is a fantastic footballer. He will be back in contention for a place in the team this Sunday after serving a two game suspension after he was sent off in the last game of the league section of the competition.

Ballinacourty were the more impressive side of the two last weekend. They worked very hard to overcome the challenge of reigning champions Stradbally on Sunday evening.

Stradbally are a side that are always very hard to beat with the last decade and a half and were so again on Sunday evening.

Ballinacourty would pull away going two or three points up on their neighbours but each time The Cove-men would come back to level or to go within one of Ballinacourty.

In the end it was Gary Hurney’s well taken goal early in the second half that proved to be the difference between the two sides.

To pick a winner out between the two is going to be a very difficult task.

Both sides have some very good footballers.

For The Nire they have the likes of Martin and Justin Walsh in defence, as well as the O’Gorman twins Maurice and Thomas.  Jamie Barron, Craig, Darren and Dylan Guiry, Brian Wall, Shane Walsh, Liam Lawlor, Shane Ryan, Jamie Barron and of course the returning Conor Gleeson are all very good footballers.

There is also plenty of class to choose from in the Ballinacourty side. Stephen Enright is an excellent goalkeeper. Brian Looby, David Collins, Richie Foley, Sean O’Hare, Shane Briggs in front of him are also players of note.

Conor Prunty and John Hurney in the middle of the field are also hard working players while up front they have lots of threat in the likes of Michael O’Halloran, Patrick Hurney, Neil Montgomery, Michael Maher, Gary Hurney, Shane O’Donovan and Evan Collins.

They would also like to be able to call on Mark Ferncombe in this game but he is having a horrible year with injuries so it remains to be seen what part he will play.

This game will go right to the wire. Maybe extra time might be needed to see who advances to next weekend’s Munster Senior Club semi-finals.

On paper Ballinacourty look to have the stronger side, but The Nire will go into the side confident that they can win and will be a little more confident than usual knowing they don’t have to face Stradbally.