Premier JFC: Cobh want to seize their chance after making knockout stages

Cobh selector Damien Byrne wants his players to relish the opportunity of facing Inniscarra this weekend.

The two teams meet in the McCarthy Insurance Group Premier JFC quarter-final juncture on Saturday afternoon in Grenagh at 4pm.

Cobh reached the semi-finals in the first year of the new grade in 2023 before finishing third in their group last year behind Canovee and Kilmurry with both going on to contest the decider.

The Imokilly team booked their knockout spot last Friday week after a comfortable victory over Kinsale in their last group game. Preparation hasn’t been straight forward going into this weekend.

“We would have picked up a couple of injuries in the last game against Kinsale," Byrne says to The Echo.

"We had a couple that had to go off injured and since then there has been at least one other injury picked up. We’ll just have to see how the week progresses.

“We will just have to make a call on availability with a couple of lads later this week, whether they’re up to it or not. It’s definitely going to stretch the squad for us.

“Two weeks is a quick enough turnaround, one of those weeks was hurling. There has been soccer as well. We would have a lot of lads playing soccer.

“It’s a challenge, but it’s a good complaint. Last year we played St James’ in the final group game and we had a good performance and won by seven points and as soon as the final whistle blew, that was the end of the season.” 

Cobh certainly know the challenge that is ahead of them on Saturday afternoon. Inniscarra won the County JAFC last year and have real confidence behind them.

“Inniscarra won the Junior A last year, it’s a really good factor, just the belief, the confidence of winning,” the Cobh selector said.

“We might have stagnated to an extent this year at times. We’re trying to reinvigorate things again, whereas with Inniscarra, they’re pressing ahead the whole time. They obviously have a decent squad.

“They’re the only crowd that we wouldn’t have a clue about. We’d have seen all the other teams plenty of times.

“There’s certainly that element of the unknown with them. Obviously, they have Seán O’Donoghue. We have decent players ourselves and we believe that we can put in a performance against them.” 

Cobh have underachieved for a long time and Byrne is fully aware of that. He wants the players to seize the opportunity of making the business end.

“Cobh is one of the least successful clubs in the county for the size of the town. I was doing the stats on this before and it shocked me.

“We were Intermediate hurling for years. We were the longest serving Intermediate hurling team at one stage. We were there for over 25 years and never got past the semi-final stage.

“We never managed to build up any kind of momentum at all. Now the position we are in at the moment in the football, there’d be no point in us going out there against Inniscarra if we didn’t believe.

“The main thing for us is that we’ve got to make sure we’re set up properly and that we’re all tuned in and that we’re ready to work hard.”