Premier SFC: Character of Valley Rovers players makes Kiely feel so lucky

Valley Rovers certainly made the most of their second chance in the McCarthy Insurance Group Premier SFC relegation play-off.

Trailing by seven points in the second half against Carbery Rangers just over a fortnight ago, the Innishannon side battled back to earn a draw and won Saturday’s replay in Enniskeane by 1-16 to 1-10.

In the eyes of manager Denis Kiely, it just reward for his players after they have shown the character to avoid defeat first time out.

“You could say we got out of jail the last day,” he said, “but we earned a right to get out of jail.

“We knew that when we came into the second game, we probably had more improvement to make than they had.

“They're a beautiful football team and they played us off the park in the first half the first day, but you can only play a team off the park if you give them the ball.

“We scored 1-16 and that's not a bad score – you might have some people up on the bank asking why do we go back and forth, but it's all about holding the ball.

“We're not playing U16 anymore, it's adult football, and I'm delighted we got through.”

A strong finish to the first half, moving from 0-7 to 0-4 behind to 0-9 to 0-7 in front – with Fiachra Lynch, who finished with 1-9, to the fore – set Valleys up well.

“In the second quarter of most games, we were letting the game slip a little bit,” Kiely said.

“We decided we weren't going to do that today. That's what two weeks of football can do – when you get two weeks of football, you can really instil a gameplan into lads and they executed well. That's all we asked them to do.

“Fiachra is outstanding, like, he's just such a brilliant man.

“How he leads the team, how he plays, how he carries himself, he's just, he's a role-model to everybody.”

Then, they had the tonic of a goal from Lynch within a minute of the restart to move five ahead – while that advantage was quickly wiped out by Carbery Rangers, Valleys found an extra gear that their Rosscarbery opponents couldn’t match.

“When we went up five and they came back again, a weaker team might have wilted, but we didn't,” Kiely said.

“We have a great load of backs and they're great men, they can defend and they can fight and they did everything we asked of them.

“We came at it again and I thought we were very fit. We had a very good physical coach with us this year, Eoin Galvin from Ballincollig, and he was great, he did a lot with the hurlers and the footballers.

“Both codes pulled really well this year and that's was shown by the performance there. There's 11 guys out there who play hurling, and that's what a dual club is.”
And it’s a dual club that will once again be competing in the top tier of Cork football for 2026.

“We were premier senior for 11 or 12 years and I didn't want to be the manager who brought us down,” Kiely said.

“There's a lot of pressure on that, but you must rise to the pressure.

“You could see the lads there in the warm-up, we said it's all player-led for the last two weeks and the players led everything on Saturday.

“When the players lead, you can achieve and that's what they did.”