Inside Track: IFC finalists’ clubs have a great history

Stabannon Parnells and Hunterstown Rovers each had a player lined up in Louth’s 1957 All-Ireland team. Tom Conlon was at full-back and immediately to his right, Ollie Reilly.

Conlon was at the veteran stage at the time, having made a comeback earlier in the championship. He captained the Louth team beaten by Mayo in the 1950 All-Ireland final, and wearing the Stabannon colours, won two club senior medals.

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Ollie Reilly couldn’t have better timed his county debut. He came in for his first game in a 1956 O’Byrne Cup league, and having retained his place throughout that competition, was a ready-made No 2 for the championship first round match with Carlow came up the following year.

There were five further matches after that, and Reilly was in for them all. His place on the All-Ireland team was hailed not only in the area from where Hunterstown drew their players, but also well beyond.

Unusual for a wing-full in those days of tough tackling, Reilly was a stylist, whose club career was highlighted by championship wins in the old second division (junior in today’s football), in 1954, and junior (intermediate) five years later.

That peep into the past is an introduction to this year’s intermediate county final. It’s coming up at Ardee on Sunday, and having missed out in last year’s final, Hunterstown will be only keen to make it this time.

Standing in Rovers’ way are a razor-sharp Stabannon side, representing a club that has had, like most others, glorious and fallow years. After the Conlon era came a winless spell that wasn’t broken until the team of the 1990s came along.

Donal Murray, David Reilly, Ken Reilly and Nicky Butterly were each presented with the Joe Ward Cup in that decade.

The last of those was in 1999. Since then Parnells have been mostly in the shadows. But now they are within an ace of getting back to the top tier, helped by players carrying surnames, Butterly and Reynolds, prominent in all of the winning senior teams of the past.

In the semi-final, Parnells put paid to Clan na Gaels’ chances of rescuing something big from a disappointing season with an emphatic win.

They are playing better than at any other time of the season, and that augurs well for their chances on Sunday.
Hunterstown had two chances of winning last year’s final. The first came at next Sunday’s venue.

Taking on Dundalk Gaels, Rovers put on a late burst to earn a draw, but came up short in the replay, decided at Darver. All-Star nominee, Ryan Burns, carries a big responsibility, but this is no one-man team.

There have been many other contributors to this march to the final, in particular in the replayed semi-final win over Mattock Rangers. There’s a good game in prospect at Páirc Mhuire.