Milltown take on Arva for a place in All-Ireland decider

Arva of Cavan stand in the way of Kildare Junior and Leinster champions, Milltown, and a place in the AIB Club All-Ireland Junior final and a meeting with the winners of the Mayo champions Lahardane MacHales and their Kerry counterparts Listowel Emmet's in Croke Park.

And what a day that would be for the club from the Parish of Allen who have enjoyed a brilliant season, taking the Kildare county title, defeating Robertstown in the final, before going on to win their provincial title in a tight and tense game at Manguard Park and while there were all of five points in it in the end, that margin of victory, was somewhat misleading as it took an injury time goal from Declan McKenna to finally see off the Louth side's resistance.

Arva may not be a club well known in these neck of the woods but are one of the oldest around having been founded back in 1888. They have four intermediate football titles to their name but more importantly have three Junior titles, the last before 2023 was back in 2016.

They have put up some impressive scores along their path with their defence certainly being impressive as they conceded just two goals on that journey, one of those was in the All-Ireland quarter-final when they defeated London side Wentworth Gaels of London (2-8 to 1-3).

Their biggest win of the campaign was an impressive display against Ballymaguigan in the Ulster quarter final when they hit 2-17 while conceding just eight points on that occasion.

Milltown received a major boost last week when the red card shown to defender Aaron Jacob for a high challenge on Glyde Rangers Conor Sheridan, was over-turned.

That red was early in the second half and while it certainly did not help the cause of the Kildare champions, if anything it galvanised them and helped them to lift their game.

Still it was a game that went right down to the wire, the winners, who missed an absolute stack of scores throughout edged ahead before that breakaway goal with McKenna firing into an empty net, the Louth keeper, doing what modern day keepers seem intent on doing, coming up to join in their side's attack but paid the penalty when his side got turned-over with McKenna punishing them bit time.

Arva have been involved in what could only be described in some robust encounters in this season's Ulster championship.

In a convincing win in their semi-final against Ballymaguigan, both sides finished with fourteen.

Peter Morris gave Arva a three-point cushion on 20 minutes, three minutes later Kevin Bouchier’s goal doubled their advantage. However, the Ballymaguigan (Derry) received a lifeline 60 seconds from half-time, Arva’s James Morris was shown a straight red card.

Arva kept the score board ticking over after the restart. Paul Finnegan’s 51st minute goal resulting in a 13-point lead but when the Derry champs were reduced to 14 the game was all but done and dusted with the red carded player allegedly pushed the match official before “coming into contact with the linesman.”

Next up for the Cavan boys were Fermanagh’s Lisnaskea Emmet’s.

The Cavan champions led 0-5 to 0-2 at the break before finding another gear in the second half to win 1-11 to 0-4.

Arva had made a blistering start to that Ulster final with two points from Kevin Bouchier and one from Dylan Maguire gave them a three-point cushion inside ten minutes.

Bouchier was the main man for Arva that day hitting an impressive seven points in total and obviously is a player Milltown will need to keep a tight grip on come Saturday.

In the All-Ireland quarter-final, played at Breffni Park, the home side were in charge throughout and in the end had a somewhat comfortable win on a final score line of Arva 2-8 Wandstowrth Gaels of London 1-3.

Arva led 2-4 to 0-0 at half-time. Barry Donnelly with their first goal on 11 minutes, Charlie Madden added another three minutes later.

BONUS

Some might say that at this stage every game for Milltown is a bonus game but that is not the way the boys in green and red will look at it.

They are within sixty minutes of playing in Croke Park and while they have enjoyed a remarkable voyage to date Saturday's game is the one they really want to win.

Throughout the season they have played well, particularly at the back; have a very impressive midfield duo and up front have a fine mixture of young and that very important ingredient, experience.

They will have learned a lot from their Leinster final win over Glyde Rangers.

They dominated much of that game but simply failed to show that superiority on to the score board.

They hit an amount of wides; a similar amount of 'shorts' and no doubt their team management under Darren O'Shea will have worked hard on that aspect of their game over the last few weeks.

Celebrations were extensive but that is now all in the past, they have knuckled down well as they prepare for this opportunity and while it is always difficult to predict the result of a game against a side unknown to them they have shown remarkable composure up to this point in both local and provincial action.

Alan Dignam in goals was very effective last time out; Cian Buckley is leading by example while Colin O'Shea is certainly the heart and soul of the defence, if not the entire team.

Kevin Byrne and Conor Sheerin are more than decent with Byrne enjoying a fabulous season and who will ever forget that brilliant block on a Glyde Rangers forward as he (Byrne) threw himself at the kicker to halt a very dangerous move.

Conor Sheerin is a fine place kicker to add to his ability to find the posts from open play.

Up front Patrick Donohoe got two vital points the last day out while Byrne, added two more points to his overall impressive display.

The Downs in Westmeath is the venue for this one and like Allenwood, has a 1 pm throw-in.