Premier JHC: Nemo Rangers look to keep building but Russell Rovers will provide a tough test

Having reached one county final last weekend, Nemo Rangers will aim to make it a double this weekend.

After winning the Co-op SuperStores Cork JAFC last year, Nemo have made the premier junior semi-finals at the first time of asking, though now they face a tough task to get past championship favourites Russell Rovers.

Last Sunday, Alan O’Donovan captained the Nemo footballers to a McCarthy Insurance Group Premier SFC victory over Mallow and in Carrigtwohill tomorrow (4pm) he will line out at centre-back for the hurlers.

The small ball has been a nice diversion for the Trabeg outfit, with O’Donovan pleasantly surprised with the progress they have made in a relatively short space of time.

“Last year, we lost the county [football] final,” he says.

“I hadn’t played hurling all year and when they asked me, I was happy to go and contribute any way I could.

“We won the junior A to go up premier junior and coming into this year, we didn’t know what to expect – it was new teams we had never played against.

“You’re delighted to be raising the profile of hurling in Nemo again because, for a few years, we were struggling to win the city championship.

“At the start of the year, our first goal was to stay up premier junior, then we got a great result against Barryroe after taking a heavy loss to Ballygarvan the first day and we said that we had a right good chance of getting out of the group.

“We got a draw against Kilbrittain and then we were playing the Glen – they had a load of good players out there, guys with senior county medals like Conor Dorris and Ben Murphy, Lee Quilligan was excellent too.

“We scrope over that game by a couple of points and any time you win a game, you’re skipping into training during the week.”

In last year’s JAHC semi-final against Ballinora and the final against Harbour Rovers, late Nemo goals got them over the line.

It’s not a huge leap to suggest that the big-game experience gleaned from winning football matches helped those involved and O’Donovan is keen to keep the journey going, even with a Castlehaven rematch on the horizon on Sunday week.

“Anybody who was at that game will tell you that we didn’t play the majority of the hurling,” he says, “a lot of it was done by Harbour Rovers and we were down a man as well.

“We’re drawing all of our experience – there are guys who out there who have played football for Cork at senior level and who have played big games.

“You look to make us of that, keep it simple and thankfully we snuck it at the end.

“This year, we’re trying to do the same thing again. It’s nice to have a semi-final to look forward, one code into the other – it’s a good problem.”

The postponement of Nemo’s football quarter-final with Clonakilty, and the Mallow game coming a week later, have had a knock-on effect for this match – with Russell Rovers having earned a quarter-final bye, it’s their first game since beating Meelin in their last group match on September 6.

Dónal Óg Cusack’s side accumulated a scoring difference of +30 across their three matches, with Brian Hartnett, Josh Beausang and Luke Duggan-Murray all impressing in attack for them.

The Churchtown/Ballycotton/Shanagarry/Garryvoe outfit reached the final of this grade in 2020, when it was known as the Lower IHC. The winners tomorrow will take on last year’s beaten finalists St Catherine’s in the decider – in 2023, the Ballynoe side were in the same group as Russell Rovers and triumphed in a winner-take-all last group game.