Leinster Club SFC final Rhode (Offaly) v St Vincent’s (Dublin) Páirc Tailteann, Navan, 2pm It’s not without some gentle irony that Rhode are looking to end their unique losing streak against the club looking to extend their unique winning streak. Because someone has to win and lose Sunday’s Leinster club football final, unless it goes to a replay, and it could well be that both those streaks will actually continue.
Rhode have never won the Leinster title before, although the Offaly champions have lost all three of their finals, in 2006, 2008, and 2010 – the last two of those to then Dublin champions Kilmacud Crokes.
Standing in their way in Navan on Sunday are current Dublin champions St Vincent’s, who now boast a perfect winning streak that stretches back to September 2012, including last year’s Leinster title. If they win back-to-back titles on Sunday they’ll surpass even the legendary St Vincent’s team of the 1970s.
“Well I suppose no other club can say they’ve made four Leinster finals in the last eight years,” says Rhode manager Pat Daly, which is one way of putting a positive spin on their relative consistency within the province, even if they’ve yet to actually win any of those finals.
“So at least seven or eight of the lads would have played in the final before. Of course that means we’ve probably eight or nine new lads in as well. But we’ve plenty of experienced lads in there, the likes of Niall, Conor and Alan McNamee, so certainly we’re ready for it.
‘Massive team’
“And we’d respect St Vincent’s alright, a massive team, All-Ireland champions. But we’d have no fear, and the boys have said that themselves. They’ve been here before. Rhode are a good team, some of them have won eight county senior medals, five under-21s in a row. So they’ve no fear, because that’s the way they are. If they’re not good enough they’re not good enough, but the lads have no fear.”
Daly is speaking from experience too: a selector in 2006, he took over as manager last year, and even though Rhode were fairly well stunned in last year’s county final by Tullamore, Daly never lost heart.
“Losing last year’s final was a big shock, given we were 5-1 on. Having said that Tullamore were a very good side. We were short a few players as well. Not taking anything away from Tullamore.
“This year, after winning back the Offaly title, we were back training on the Tuesday night. The boys said that, they wanted to go straight back training, and that set the tone for the rest of the season.”
Indeed it has, as Rhode have taken out both the Meath champions (Navan O’Mahony’s) and Kildare champions, scoring 1-15 against Moorefield in the Leinster semi-final. Crucial to Sunday’s game, however, is maintaining that scoring rate, as Rhode fell well short of it in their last three final appearances.
Attacking team
“In all those three finals, we scored eight scores, 1-7, 1-7 and 0-8,” says Daly. “You won’t win anything with that. If we score that again on Sunday we won’t win it.
“We’d always be an attacking team. We don’t set up defensively. We feel we have the forwards, so we’ll be going at it that way. You have to go at it that way. Vincent’s are also an attacking team, although they aren’t long getting men behind the ball too. But our fitness is also very good. We’ve worked very hard on that this year.”
What Rhode also have in their favour is a very much in-form Niall McNamee: he hit 0-7 in the semi-final, and has the potential to outscore even the likes of Diarmuid Connolly on Sunday.
“I think Niall is one of the top 10 forwards in Ireland,” says Daly. “He’s a serious player. If we’re training say at eight o’clock, Niall would be there half an hour before, popping balls over the bar. And he’d be the last man popping the ball over the bar that evening.
“He is very tuned in, very focused, and he brings it to a different level. He has always been that way. The first senior game he played for us he was only 17, and I think he got 3-6 from corner forward. You just knew then that this chap was something special.”
