Inside Track: Hunterstown aiming to make in on to the roll of honour

Mattock Rangers have the distinction of being the only Louth club to be represented in the final of both the Leinster senior and intermediate football finals.

After winning the county senior title for the first time, in 2002, beating St Bride’s in the final, the Collon club got a great run in the provincial championship, going the whole way to the final.

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With jingle bells ringing in their ears, they went down to Meath’s Dunshaughlin in the final, played at Páirc Tailteann on the Sunday before Christmas.

Rangers had better luck when they played in the intermediate final in 2019. Here, they beat the Kilkenny champions, Mullinavat. That win put them alongside Seán O’Mahony’s (2014), Geraldines' (2013), and Dundalk Gaels, winners when the competition was first played in 2003.

No other Louth team has made the final.

Hunterstown Rovers will take a step closer to making it on the roll of honour if they beat Tubberclair this weekend. This is a semi-final being played at a venue that’s been good to the Louth champions, Stabannon Parnells’ grounds. There’s a certain irony there, in that it was Parnells Rovers beat in a Louth final, which wasn’t short on controversy.

Rovers had it easy in their provincial opener, but were made to battle the whole way when they played Laois champions Park-Ratheniska at the quarter-final stage. It ended 0-11 to 0-6, with inter-county star Ryan Burns, getting all but three points of his side’s tally.

It would add further gloss to Burns’ year if he could make it to yet another 2025 provincial final.

His first half goal was crucial in Louth’s momentous defeat of Meath in the Leinster senior, and that, plus his general performance that day, was a contributor to him getting an All-Star nomination.

Rovers, however, will need big performances from more than Burns. Tubberclair have a forward-line capable of running up a big score, and will obviously need watching. In the opening round, the Westmeath champions racked up 3-17, and then in the quarter-final, 2-27.

Maybe too much can be read into that latter score. St Martin’s, the Wexford standard-beaters, managed just one point for the 60 minutes. More than that, the game was played on an astro-turf pitch in Mullingar.

The other semi-final, also going ahead this weekend, has Kildare’s Sallins out against Clara, the Offaly champions. It’s worth noting that also-rans in their half of the draw were the Dublin and Meath representatives. More about that if Hunterstown get over this weekend’s hurdle.