PREVIEW AND PREDICTION: Parish neighbours collide as Mountmellick face Kilcavan
A place in the Intermediate Football final is the prize in Portlaoise on Friday evening
Friday evening sees the first of the Intermediate Football Championship semi-finals and it pits parish neighbours against each other. Mountmellick and Kilcavan will meet in the LOETB Centre of Excellence with a place in the decider in two weeks as the reward.
Mountmellick are no strangers to the Intermediate final, with their most recent appearance coming in 2024 when they were beaten by Crettyard. Meanwhile, Kilcavan have never played senior football, while their last Intermediate final appearance came in 1962, just 16 years after the club was founded in 1946.
Mountmellick come into Friday’s game off the back of a five-week break since they secured their second win in a row against Ballylinan, having started the campaign with victory over Annanough.
Kilcavan had to come through the back-door route to reach the semi-finals. They won their opening game against Ballyroan-Abbey, but were beaten by fellow semi-finalists Ballyfin in the Winners’ Section of Round 2.
That sent them into Round 3, where they faced Annanough, a side Mountmellick had already defeated. Kilcavan got over the line in that game to book their place in the last four.
Kilcavan will still have nightmares from last year’s semi-final defeat to Arles-Kilcruise, when they led by six points with 20 minutes remaining but failed to score again as Arles-Kilcruise came back to win by a point.
Mountmellick haven’t won an Intermediate title in 20 years, but have lost three finals during that time. As well as the aforementioned 2024 final, they lost to Park-Ratheniska in 2021 and Courtwood in 2018, when competing as Mountmellick Gaels.
Kilcavan have enjoyed recent success in the Junior ‘A’ Championship, winning the competition in 2024 before narrowly missing out on reaching a Leinster Club final when they were beaten by Dunsany.
This promises to be a closely fought contest, but I predict Kilcavan will progress to just their third-ever Intermediate final.
Prediction: Kilcavan
Throw-in is at 7.30pm in the LOETB Centre of Excellence.