Allenwood hoping to build on success of '23 ahead of SFC opener
Daragh Nolan spoke to Allenwood's Fionn Moran ahead of their SFC preliminary round game against Kilcock
Fresh off a Leinster Intermediate title win, Allenwood kept the winning train rolling with a spotless record in Division 2. They arrive back into Senior football after 11 wins from 11 in the league, which was followed by a 0-19 to 1-12 win over St Laurences in the final.
Allenwood corner-back Fionn Moran said, “People were saying that the wheels were going to come off at some stage, but I don't think so, we are still feeling fresh. A few boys have gone on holidays and hopefully they come back fresh after that too.
“We just carried on from last year, we only took a month's break after the All-Ireland semi-final. We got straight back into it, straight back into the fitness runs, and that is what really stood to us then in the last few minutes against teams.”
The Leinster Intermediate champions had again targeted Division 2 after coming close to promotion in 2023 and they certainly made their presence felt this year with an unblemished winning record.
“It was definitely an ambition to get out of Division 2, especially after last year and coming so close. I thought this year would be the one after a good run last year, but we just took each game as it came really. We tried to defend well, we were missing a few forwards and then when they came back we were even stronger. We didn’t plan to go unbeaten, but that’s the way it happened,” Moran explained.
“No you couldn’t have (pictured it going so well). You would think that some team would trip you up at some stage. Even in the final you were unsure, we had gone so well, and got promoted, but the icing on that cake would be winning this.”
Allenwood get their 2024 Joe Mallon Motors Senior Football Championship campaign underway against Kilcock on August 10 in the preliminary round. A fixture they won 1-13 to 0-10 back in June during the league.
“Kilcock will be a hard team to beat and they will be gaining a few players back that have been away with Kildare. We’ll just concentrate on our game and if we can keep their main players quiet we will be happy enough. If we can get it to our main shooters like Joey (Cunningham), Bago (Eoin Bagnall) and (Johnny) Doyle we’ll go well,” Moran said.
“They have a few good players, but we will approach the same way. We might be a bit tighter this time, but we will suss it out in the first five minutes who needs to go on who. Whatever we see we’ll go with that and make sure they don’t get through the middle of us because they are big men coming at you.”
Senior football presents an altogether different challenge for Noel Mooney’s men as their swashbuckling style could prove tricky to replicate at the highest level.
“We have talked about it and as soon as any team gets into our 45 we will really put the squeeze on them and make their passing slower. We’ll get the ball then and break at pace, get it through the hands, and tire them out that way,” Moran explained.
“I think the short break suited us. We are a very young team and we just all stuck together and trained hard. We took the pre-season tournament as a warm-up and tried a few things IN the league. By the time the league came around we had figured out what we wanted to do and who we wanted to play where.”
He concluded, “The hope for this year is taking this first game on and if we win that we are safe. Then, if we can get anywhere out of the group we’ll be very happy and we’ll take it from there.”