PREVIEW: Kilcoo on full throttle for twenty-first county title

“You’d never get sick of winning county titles - every medal is important,” Kilcoo’s new boss Karl Lacey told his players who are chasing an incredible twenty-first ​county title this Sunday in Pairc Esler.

​Burren are the last team standing in the Magpies’ way following wins against Carryduff twice, Mayobridge and Clonduff. 

However, while the focus for the players is firmly on the final, there has been a lot of negativity in the air since the Magpies’ 2-15 to 1-7 victory in the semi-final to Clonduff that saw three red cards dished out to the Hilltown side and one to Kilcoo’s Niall Branagan who at this stage will miss the final unless the club appeal.

In terms of the task at hand, Kilcoo seem to be in as good shape as ever. The Magpies were sharper and superior to Clonduff from the start in the semi and with players like Jerome Johnston in fine goal-scoring form and Paul Devlin back from injury and contributing well from the dead ball.

“It has been brilliant,” said Lacey after the semi-final. “Paul has had a rough year this year. He played a good bit of league at the start of the year and then he pulled up with an injury and he found it hard to get back. He had a bit of a recurrence with it, but he has worked really hard and I’m delighted for him. He got starting and we got maybe 40 minutes into him.

“The thing about this group, we’ve been talking about it all year, it is the collective. There’s no individuals. We are strong right across the board. It is a real competitive environment at training every night.”

In prior rounds, Division 1 league champions Carryduff had been tipped to give the reigning county champions a scare, but Kilcoo were twice much too strong for Finnian Morriarty’s side.

In the first clash, it was a 1-3 burst with no reply before half-time which sent the Magpies on their way to a 1-13 to 0-10 win, before the two sides had a slugfest in Liatroim in the quarter-final.

It wasn’t the prettiest encounter, with Carryduff finishing the game with 12 players, but Kilcoo wouldn’t have minded, as they ran out 0-9 to 0-5 winners.

In between those two games, Kilcoo brushed a passive Mayobridge aside, with Jerome Johnston’s first half goal influential in a straightforward 1-10 to 0-5 triumph.

Throughout the Championship, current Down manager and Kilcoo legend Conor Laverty has been coming on regularly as a substitute, and has been hugely influential at that.

“Conor has been around a long time, he is well experienced and he has good knowledge of the game. He’s very intelligent. He is pushing for that jersey and he just doesn’t accept coming on, which is great. Everybody's competing for the jersey and I’ve full trust in Conor, I’ve full trust in Jack Devlin or MacDarragh Hynes - all them lads. They can all come on and do a job at the right time.”

As for Lacey fitting into his new club, he said: “ I suppose it's a question for them but I am flourishing in the moment and I'm really enjoying my time with the boys. I'm learning as much from them as they're learning from me. It just goes back to that collective. They drive everything. They drive the standards, I just facilitate the group.”

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