Rebel Óg Premier Minor Hurling: Glen Rovers and Sars favourites to make P1 final
Sarsfields' Cathal Quirke and Midleton's Peter Barrett tussle for the sliotar during the Rebel Og Premier 1 league final at the Mardyke. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
The Premier 1 and 2 minor hurling championship semi-finals take place this week.
First into action on Wednesday night will be Sarsfields and Ballincollig at 6.30pm. That will be followed at 8pm by Midleton v Glen Rovers, with both games at the Mardyke.
Sars started their campaign with a one-point loss to Killeagh but bounced back with an impressive win over Inniscarra.
Their final game saw them inflict a heavy defeat on Midleton to go straight into the semi-final.
The Village started with a big win over Douglas, before beating Aghada and then losing to the Glen.
Many will fancy Sars in this one but they are without gifted forward Barry O’Flynn, who is a huge loss, and Finn O’Connor is also out. But they still have plenty of talented players and will look to the likes of Jack Huggins, Rory Higgins, Harry Cogan and Callum Austin to pick up the slack tonight.
Ballincollig won’t fear Sars and will look to the likes of David O’Leary, Danny Miskella, Eoin Dwyer, Theo Morgan and Tadhg Murphy to deliver.
They are more than capable of causing what would be considered an upset.
The second game should be another thriller as the defending champions, Glen Rovers, are finding form at the right time. They had a quarter-final game against Douglas two weeks ago and came through that tough test to reach the semi.
In the group stages, they had impressive wins over Ballincollig and Aghada, but lost to Douglas, before gaining revenge for that loss in the quarter-final.
They can call on brothers Michael T and Jake Brosnan, their cousin Josh Brosnan, Diarmuid Wall and Cian Walsh, to name a few.
Like Sars, many will have them down as favourites for this one, but Midleton are a quality side and won’t be there just to make up the numbers.
They won the league title recently against Sars and will be hoping to go on and add the championship crown to that.
In the likes of Peter Barrett, Eoghan Fraser, Darragh Egan and Nicky Coughlan, among others, they have plenty of talent at their disposal to come through.
Thursday night attention will turn to the Premier 2 semi-finals with a double-header at MTU.
First into action will be St Finbarr’s against Youghal at 6.30pm, and that will be followed by the clash of Carrigtwohill and Shandrum at 8pm.
St Finbarr’s, Mallow and Shandrum all finished level on points so that meant a quarter-final game. The Barrs won the toss with Shandrum then beating Mallow by a single point, 1-16 to 1-15, to join them in the semi-finals.
Difficult to call winners here but Shandrum and Youghal will be slight favourites to advance to the final.
Sarsfields v Ballincollig, 6.30pm; Glen Rovers v Midleton, 8pm, both at the Mardyke.
St Finbarr’s v Youghal, 6.30pm; Carrigtwohill v Shandrum, 8pm, both at MTU.
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