Mountmellick's Eoin George looks ahead to their Intermediate Football final against Crettyard

Mountmellick have been playing Intermediate football since they were relegated by Arles-Kilcruise in 2017.

Full-forward Eoin George is hoping that their time has come as the club has been there or thereabouts especially in the last three years with a final loss in 2021 coupled with two semi-final defeats in 2022 and 2023. 

“It would be huge, we’ve been close enough to actually winning but came up short. We usually lose to the team that ends up winning it but it would be massive now,” he said.

On their route to the final, Mountmellick clashed with Arles-Kilcruise in the quarter-finals with a last minute Rory Culleton point sealing what should have been more than a one-point victory.

“Arles-Kilcruise usually do give us a few issues in fairness, they're cute. They’ve plenty of experience there and they always give us trouble. We missed a good bit there at the end of that game including myself, we should have actually ran away with it. They've had our number the last couple of years, we never take them lightly. It was nice that it was Rory Culleton that came up the field and got us the last score of the game to get over them because they're always very hard to play against,” George said.

Mountmellick’s semi-final victory over Park-Ratheniska was a lot more straightforward with eight points separating the sides two weeks ago.

“Ratheniska, they are a good team and I suppose they probably had a bit of a bad day. In fairness we did play well, we were well prepared and kind of knew what we were doing and definitely fancied ourselves against them but again I do think they did have a very bad day. They had a few lads struggling with injuries as well, which probably worked in our favour. We had a few injuries ourselves so it was nice to kind of play well because in the Kilcruise game, although we got through it, we thought we could have won by more and probably played better. I think we were definitely due a good game anyway,” he said.

When asked where the game will be won or lost against Crettyard, George had this to say.

“They’ve a few very good footballers so we’ll have to stop them. They're a high scoring team so we'll have to put a good few scores up ourselves to win. Again, we fancy ourselves, a lot from the outside probably wouldn't think that but we're definitely looking forward to it. We’ll have to be very good all over the field, probably more so on the backline because they do have good forwards and they're capable of putting in a few goals,” George said.

Mountmellick is riding the crest of a wave at the minute with both the footballers and hurlers set to compete in County Finals. George says that there’s ‘a massive buzz around the place’.

“It's unreal, even with the hurdlers there as well, two county finals, it's a massive buzz around the place. People might think that they're probably a hindrance as we do have a lot of lads playing both codes but it's brilliant. There’s a massive buzz, I see flags now up all over the town, that's what it’s all about as well. We've got a good bunch of young lads coming through the last few years, they're good trainers and they're good footballers, so they've been a massive influence as well so it’s great,” he ended.