Kerry SHC: Group 3

Dr Crokes v Crotta O’Neills

Friday at 7.30pm

Austin Stack Park

Dr Crokes came extremely close to causing an upset in their first ever Kerry Senior Hurling Championship fixture. Tonight, they’re hoping to go one step further.

Few gave the Crokes a chance against Abbeydorney last weekend but a spirited display saw the Lewis Road club give their more established black and amber counterparts a real scare. In the end, they fell just short by the narrowest of margins (0-17 to 0-16), but they will surely take heart and encouragement from the fact that they pushed O’Dorney, last year’s beaten semi-finalists, to the pin of their collar.

After David Carroll scored a historic first point at this level for the Crokes, O’Dorney settled and led 5-3 at the water break. Both sides doubled their tallies in the second quarter to leave the scores at 10-6 at half-time, and when the North Kerry club powered into a seven-point lead early in the second half, Crokes’ travelling support must have feared the worst.

But full credit to the debutants, they stuck to their task and a rip-roaring fightback, which included overs by Mark Heffernan, Tom Doyle, Carroll, Aaron Murphy, and goalkeeper Conor Bohane, narrowed the gap to just a single point in stoppage time.

Abbeydorney hung on for the win, and now Crokes will need some kind of result against Crotta O’Neills to have any chance of progressing to the next phase of the competition. Two teams from each of the three groups of three will advance, with the bottom side in each pool making an early exit.

Crotta are sure to provide a stern test. They have five Kerry seniors in their ranks, including the likes of Shane Nolan and Barry Mahony, although the unfortunate loss of Jordan Conway through injury has dampened their championship prospects somewhat.

The Kilflynn club have real pedigree in this tournament having gone all the way on new fewer than nine occasions. Their last triumph may have been many moons ago now (1968) but they are well used to the rough and tumble of the Kerry Senior Hurling Championship and they will certainly provide the Crokes with a very stern test.

Crokes manager John Lenihan will have his boys well psyched up for the challenge, however, and if they can show the grit and determination that brought them to within a point of O’Dorney, you never know where it might take them. Upsetting the natural order of things at the first time of asking is a tall order, but they showed last weekend that they’re not all that far away from doing just that.

Elsewhere in this weekend’s championship action, Ballyheigue take on Lixnaw on Saturday at 7.30pm. Ballyheigue fell to a heavy enough defeat to defending champions Kilmoyley (4-23 to 1-16) in their opening Group 2 fixture so it’s do or die for them this time out. Lixnaw, the 2018 champions, will be a tough challenge.

In Group 1, Ballyduff take on a Causeway outfit who had a big win over St Brendan’s last weekend (3-20 to 0-13). That match is on Sunday at 2pm and Causeway will fancy themselves to prevail and book a place in the quarter-finals.

All matches will be played in Austin Stack Park in Tralee.