Crettyard’s Evan O’Carroll and Pierce Nash primed for IFC final test against Mountmellick

Crettyard are hoping that it’ll be third time lucky in the Laois Shopping Centre Intermediate Football final when they go up against Mountmellick on Friday evening.

The club were relegated from the Senior grade in 2019 and have been in two finals since then in 2020 and 2023.

Pierce Nash and Evan O’Carroll spoke to the Leinster Express/ Laois Live ahead of the final in Laois Hire O’Moore Park.

“Training has been going well, we had a few weeks off because we won our first two matches. It was good to get back into the swing of it against Annanough. We’ve everyone back fit for once and preparations are going very well,” Nash said.

Crettyard are playing in their second successive final having lost to Ballylinan in 2023. Nash says that the group weren’t happy with how they performed in last year’s decider. 

“Ballylinan beat us twice in the championship last year. They were the best team in the grade but we were probably disappointed that we didn’t give a good account of ourselves in the final. They kind of ran away with it at the end and we weren't happy with our performance,” he said.

He also spoke of how the younger players in Crettyard have fitted seamlessly into the team and with them being a small rural club, there’s not ‘much time to blood players’.

“The group's after maturing a lot in the last year. Over the last few years, we've had loads of young lads coming up. A lot of them have starter roles now and being a small rural club we don't really have much time to blood players. If you're of age, you're kind of nearly a starter or straight in as a sub. John Brennan, Darragh Kelly, Adam Kavanagh and Jonah Kelly are all after maturing and they're all after really stepping up to the plate last year and this year. This year in the final, I think we're going to be completely different to last year anyway and I’m really looking forward to going out and putting on a performance,” Nash said.

Nash is hopeful that Friday evening is finally the time to get Crettyard back up to the Senior grade as they’d think of themselves as a Senior club.

“It's huge, we're a tiny little club. Historically, we do think of ourselves as a Senior club. We have a lot of Intermediate titles and I know we go up and down but we still think of ourselves as a Senior club. There's been a lot of change from that team that got relegated. We've had a lot of young lads coming up and it's like I said last time, they've been forced to learn on the job. They've been straight into starting positions and having to play a big part in the team. A lot of them lads are getting older and more experienced. It'll be huge for us to get back up, it'll be great for the Parish and I think the team is in the right place now to go up and play and to try and compete in Senior football,” he said.

Mountmellick are the opposition on Friday evening and Nash is expecting it to be an ‘end to end’ contest.

“It's going to be end to end stuff. I watched their match against Park and they were all action. We’ve done a lot of scoring in the Championship as well but I think they'll come down to 1-15 and we’ll have to win our battles all over the pitch. I think it's going to be a great match,” Nash ended.

Evan O’Carroll has been Crettyard’s talisman in the championship with him having scored 2-5 in their semi-final victory over Annanough.

“All is going well, there's been a bit of a buzz about the community which is great. That's what the GAA is about. We got to train with the U-5’s, U-7’s and U-9’s in the club the other day. That’s where we came from so it’s good to give back to them. It was very enjoyable and nice build-up,” he said.

Crettyard will take learnings from last year’s defeat to Ballylinan according to O’Carroll. A big thing for him is to make sure that they don’t let the game get away from them like they did against Ballylinan in 2023.

“We can take a few things from it. We were in the game up until half-time. I thought we were playing pretty well but Ballylinan got a 10 or 15 minute spell after half time to put us out of contention. We need to focus on that and make sure that we have a solid start, 10-15 minutes of the first-half. After half-time, we have to be ready unlike last year,” O’Carroll said.

Reflecting on their path to the final, the Laois footballer commended his side for their second-half performance in the semi-final which put them in the position they’re in.

“Fingers crossed, the last two finals haven’t gone well but we’ll take the positives from it. We were okay I suppose but lads weren’t overly happy with the performance against Portlaoise in the first round but a win is a win. We clicked to a certain extent against Kilcruise and the scoreline flattered us a small bit. They were carrying a lot of injuries which meant they weren’t at the strength that we know they’re capable of.  We struggled against a good Annanough side for the first 30 minutes. We came out and gave a decent second-half display which got us to a final. We can only take learnings from the last two finals. There are new lads after coming on to the panel and they’re all a year older now, hopefully last year stands to them,” he said.

Crettyard and Mountmellick both suffered the same fate in 2023 as they both lost out to Ballylinan. O’Carroll is aware of the threat Mountmellick will pose in the decider.

“If anything you're hoping that our prep that we've had over the last two weeks sets us up well. They have four former Laois footballers that we have to keep an eye on. We know it's going to be a massive challenge but I suppose we have to look forward to that. We have to step up to that and see if we can handle a team that’s strong 1 to 15,” O’Carroll said.

O’Carroll isn’t looking past Friday evening when it comes to assessing if Crettyard are ready to make the step up to Senior. The winner on the night will earn their right to do so.

“We can only judge that off Friday night. If we don't win on Friday night, we're not good enough to go and play Senior. Hopefully and if we win on Friday night, I suppose we'll have a look then and hopefully. There's good underage coming up for Crettyard. If we make to Senior and that’s a big if, we’ll hope to set a platform for the younger lads coming through to drive the club on,” he ended.