Preview: Goals could again be crucial for Leixlip progression

After a thrilling game and a mighty scare, Leixlip progressed over Louth outfit St Fechins to reach the semi-final stage of this year’s Leinster Club Junior Hurling Championship.

They will face Offaly Intermediate champions Carrig Riverstown on Sunday in Birr, 1.30 throw-in.

We will start with Leixlip and look back to look forward as they move on from their quarter-final win over St Fechins. It was a less than convincing display for the favoured Kildare men.

St Fechins performed superbly and nobody would begrudge Leixlip finding it tough against the energetic Louth side. But the manner of the defensive performance was concerning, for all of St Fechins’ 4-14 scored, they left a lot out there.

Relatively simple frees were missed and goal chances squandered. Leixlip were both lucky and deserve commendation for some crucial last-ditch defending at times. The salient point in all of this is obvious, that level of performance won’t be enough against a side with more quality.

We now move to the positive side of the Leixlip ledger, 3-19 is a staggering output and proved to be a necessary one. For a team that seemed under the cosh for so much of this game, giving a performance that wasn’t clicking, they were ruthless in front of the posts. And it's the reason they are still in this Championship.

Darragh Melville hit a brilliant 1-9 in the quarter-final and Cormac Keegan hit 2-2 and while I don’t believe Carrig Riverstown will be as easily breached, they have shown plenty of form for conceding goals in recent games. The Offaly champions goalkeeper Liam Hoare has seen his net breached on five occasions between their quarter-final and County Intermediate final win against Coolderry. Additionally, they have conceded no more than 11 points, a sign of their superiority in those games. But goals could again be crucial for a Leixlip path to victory.

Similarly to their semi-final opponents, Carrig Riverstown conceded goals and gave up chances to a supposedly weaker side before pulling clear down the home stretch. Their winning scoreline of 1-20 to 3-11 against Dublin’s Junior ‘A’ champs Good Counsel Liffey Gaels tells a much less extreme story than the one that unfolded up in Darver.

These sides have a lot of similarities in their 2023 campaigns as they both took home the Intermediate Championship of their respective counties having been the favourite throughout.

Carrig Riverstown, unlike Leixlip’s last opponents, have two reliable free-takers in Lee Hogan and Brendan Hoctor. Between their last Championship outing and the Offaly Intermediate final, Hoctor and Hogan have notched 0-25 between them with just over half of those coming from set-pieces.

The two men are no slouches from play either and will be crucial to their sides attack from corner-forward and wing-forward.

St.Fechins were wasteful against Leixlip, particularly when it came to free-taking, a similar amount of chances afforded to Carrig Riverstown will likely be punished far more severely.

There is little to separate these sides on paper, but I’ll give the edge to the Kildare men and back Leixlip to up their game for this semi-final. But they’ll need defensive improvement in spades and Melville on song once again if they are to make it through to the Leinster decider.