After the blanket of snow that smothered the O'Moore Park pitch in Portlaoise last Sunday, leaving the pitch unplayable, Moorefield's date in a Leinster final with Westmeath champions St Loman's will take place today. The snow has cleared, and conditions in the Midlands are expected to be quite mild this afternoon, so there is no weather problems stopping today's Leinster Senior Club Championship final going ahead.
There can be plenty of comparisons drawn between St Loman’s and Moorefield as they prepare to face each other today. While there are some striking differences in the two teams, one thing that cannot be questioned is the bottle of either side and they have both came through some hairy encounters on occasion. An almost stubborn mindset to neglect the idea of defeat has come to the fore in recent times for both clubs.
Moorefield’s titanic battles – at least to those from Kildare – have been more high profile. They barely scraped a draw in the opening game of the championship against Confey as Mark Murray swooped in to nail a last minute free to ensure the Moores didn’t begin the championship on a losing note, and their will to win was just as important as their defensive organisation and Celbridge’s lack of punch when they won the county final having played for over 40 minutes with 13 men. That was a preface of what was to come in Leinster as they somehow managed to claw back a three-point deficit against Portlaoise to snatch a famous win in O’Moore Park, and they repeated their trick of playing better with a numerical disadvantage when outscoring Rathnew by 1-6 to 1-1 following the dismissal of Cian O’Connor 37 minutes in to the Leinster semi-final.
The galvanising effects of those wins cannot be understated, and you can be sure that no matter what happens during the course of Sunday’s game, Moorefield will keep plugging away.
Contrast their fortunes with St Loman’s. The Mullingar side drew their opening championship game too, but their passage through the rest of the Westmeath competition was a relative breeze as no team came within six points of them. The waters became rather choppy once they entered provincial fare however, and the lack of competition in their home county meant they could have been slightly undercooked going into the quarter-final clash with Mullinalaghta. They conceded 1-2 without response early on before hitting back, but they then trailed by six points with just a quarter of the game left to play. Loman’s then showed their bottle, remarkably scoring 1-4 without response to win by 1-12 to 1-11 and book a date with Meath side Simonstown Gaels.
Managed by Colm O’Rourke, the two in a row Meath champions surged into an early 1-4 to no score lead, but once again St Loman’s settled into the game and ended up winning by 0-13 to 1-8.
Key in both of those victories was the free-scoring exploits of John Heslin who bagged 1-11 of their total tally of 1-23 from placed balls. Quite simply, Luke Dempsey’s men would have been well off the pace if it weren’t for his prolific forward’s dead-eyed accuracy. This could make for fascinating viewing on Sunday as one of the strong points of Moorefield’s play has been their excellent tackling, and manager Ross Glavin alluded to as much in an interview with this paper.
“We’ve been really good at that all year anyways, and one of our defensive mantras is that when we’re tackling to make it difficult to give a foul against us,” he said, and he is spot on. Over the last two games Moorefield have conceded a paltry two points from frees, though Rathnew did score a goal from a penalty, albeit a rather soft looking decision from referee John Hickey as midfielder James Stafford went down like a tonne of bricks from a gentle Daryl Flynn push in the square.
Glavin alluded to the fact that most of the top teams in club football have a consistently reliable freetaker these days when asked about the threat of John Heslin, but the precociously talented Westmeath star is much more than just a dead ball specialist.
Most people have seen the clip of his absolutely sensational goal in the county final win over Tyrrellspass where he won the throw-in and powered his way through the entire opposition defence before almost bursting the seams of the net with a thundering finish. Heslin has been a constant player on the radar of most GAA folks since making his championship debut with Westmeath back in 2011, and the powerful forward has been one of the most consistent performers in the game since his breakthrough.
If Heslin were to be placed in the forward line of any other county he could be one of the game’s biggest stars, and his style, which is backed up by no little substance, ensures that he has endeared himself to many.
This year he was a cut above the rest in Westmeath. As seen in the Westmeath county final, it looked like he was playing against minor footballers at times. Heslin has clocked up a remarkable 11-57 over the course of nine championship games in 2017, which is some way clear of their second highest scorer, Shane Dempsey, who has 1-23 to his name in the championship to date. While Heslin has been in fabulous form with his free-taking duties, the 25-year-old has contributed heavily outside of that by nailing 9-20 from open play.
In the Leinster Championship he has managed to stand tall once again, providing composure at crucial times and registering impressive scores when his side need them most.
The Leinster quarter-final against Mullinalaghta was proving a tricky affair as St Loman’s trailed by 1-2 to no score before their talisman settled them into the game with a long range free and a stupendous effort from play. When they trailed by six points in the second half of that same game Heslin chipped in with 1-2 and set up another point of a 1-4 St Loman’s haul that got the Mullingar men over the line.
Then came the semi-final tie with Simonstown Gaels where they trailed by 1-4 to no score to the Meath champions early on, but three first half points from Heslin helped to pull them into the game and trail by just 1-7 to 0-6 at the interval, and the former UCD scholar raised a further three white flags in the second half to help get his side over the line.
Whoever picks up Heslin on Sunday is in for a tough day, but Moorefield have the collective nous to maybe not completely nullify his threat, but at least significantly stunt it. Mark Dempsey seems the most likely man for the job after performing superbly in the championship thus far, snuffing out the threats of Niall Kelly, Paddy Brophy and Leighton Glynn to supreme effect, and Sunday could mark another important lesson on the 18-year-old’s steep learning curve this year.
If Moorefield can continue to keep their discipline in the tackle – and referee Barry Tiernan will have a big say on this – they should have enough in their collective to get by a St Loman’s side that has relied heavily on the brilliance of Heslin.
While this novel pairing does throw up plenty of intrigue and uncertainty, one thing that can be guaranteed is that it will be a tight match right until the very last shrill of the whistle.
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