Mitchels face county champions Knockmore in league final
John Melvin
County champions Knockmore will be bidding to pick up their first piece of silverware of the year this weekend when they take on Castlebar Mitchels the Division 1 league final on Sunday (August 21) at James Stephens Park, Ballina.
Parke-Keelogues-Crimlin and Davitts will contest the Division 2 league final, also on Sunday, and will also be playing Division 1 football for next season following two intriguing semi-finals last weekend.
Of course all eyes will now be focusing on the club championship, which begins on the first weekend of September, but the league has provided an ideal preparation, and some clubs will be further strengthened when a number of players return from the US where many of them have been playing football over the summer.
What will be interesting is how clubs will react to players coming back and being part of the team preparation for the club championship, in some cases displacing players who have been playing in the league.
The other side of that coin is that a lot of players feel they haven’t had the chance to go on the US travel experience due to the pandemic, which has kept so many players out of North America for the past two years. It is a quandary that some team managers will have to deal with.
In any event, Sunday's Division 1 league final should shed further light of how the county champions, Knockmore, are making progress. Judging by what we saw last weekend, they remain the team to beat – although Ballina Stephenites will be disappointed that they did not take a lot of chances that were presented to them as they lost by four points in the end (2-12 to 0-14).
Castlebar Mitchels put in arguably the best performance of last weekend when they had five points to spare over Garrymore on Saturday night (2-14 to 2-9).
Garrymore looked set for victory when they led by four points but in an amazing turnabout, Mitchels hit 1-6 to Garrymore’s single pointed free in the last quarter to win comfortably in the end.
It sets up an intriguing final against Knockmore on Sunday in Ballina. The games throws in at 3.15 p.m.
Meanwhile, there was no shortage of drama in the Division 2 semi-final meeting of Davitts and Hollymount-Carramore last weekend, where Ronan McNamara fired over the wining point with a monster free from all of 55 yards in a game which needed extra-time to decide it.
Davitts will now face Parke-Keelogues-Crimlin on Sunday in Charlestown (throw-in 2.30 p.m.), whose magnificent league journey continued last weekend down in Tallagh, Belmullet, where not many gave them a chance of coming away with a ticket to the final.
However, Parke were finding the target, something Belmullet were struggling with, and were fully deserving of their three-point win.
In the Division 1 relegation battle last weekend, Kiltimagh secured their status for next season when they defeated Ballaghaderreen by 5-13 to 3-17. Ballintubber face Louisburgh in the other Division 1 relegation game tomorrow (Saturday) at 12 noon in Ray Prendergast Memorial Park, Ballintubber.
The other league finals down for decision, meanwhile, are as follows: Division 3 - Bonniconlon v Killala in Ballina on Sunday (August 21) at 1.30 p.m.; Division 4 - Breaffy B v Charlestown B in Claremorris on Sunday (August 21) at 12 p.m.; Division 5 - Westport C v Kilmeena B in Islandeady today (Friday) in Westport at 7 p.m.