SAFC: Daniel O'Mahony keen for Knocknagree to build on their success

Knocknagree may have fulfilled a dream with Sunday’s McCarthy Insurance Group SAFC final win, but they are not going up to premier senior just to make up the numbers.

Sunday’s 2-17 to 0-17 win over Cill na Martra at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh made it third time lucky for the Duhallow outfit after losses to St Michael’s in 2022 and Carrigaline last year.

Cork star Daniel O’Mahony, one of many heroes for John Fintan Daly’s side, was naturally delighted but, equally, wants to make sure that the group keep maximising their potential.

“It's absolutely phenomenal, to be honest,” he said.

“We've had a lot of success over the last decade, but we've also had a lot of hurt.

“It's our third time coming here for a senior A final, having lost two previous ones, so we knew today it was do or die.

“We're lucky in that we have a fantastic group, but the nature of a small club is we don't have a massive amount coming in behind us. We're acutely aware of the importance of winning now and making hay while the sun shines, so it's a massive relief to be able to finally get over it.”

Knocknagree enjoyed a great start as they harnessed the wind from the off and led by 1-7 to 0-2 at one stage in the first half while they retired at half-time with a 2-9 to 0-6 advantage.

“We talked about going out and attacking the first 15 minutes," O'Mahony said, "but it was beyond our expectations, to be honest, to go ahead as far as we did, which was phenomenal.

“I can't speak for the lads, but obviously they worried us at one stage when they got their purple patch in the second half.

“It was a very strong wind, but we'd spoken about it at half-time. We knew they would get their purple patch and at that stage, it was just about mitigating it, minimising it and playing our own game.

“Luckily, we kind of weathered the storm that they threw at us, because they threw a storm at us. We weathered it and we came out the right side.”

Speaking after the game, manager John Fintan Daly noted how Knocknagree were often said to play ‘Kerry-style’ football, something he took as a compliment. O’Mahony agrees that their front-foot nature of their play benefited from the new rules for 2025.

“I think with the new rules, the kind of reward teams who go out and play the game of football in the spirit it's supposed to be played in - you saw Kerry winning the All-Ireland,” he said.

“Luckily, we have a manager who really endorses that style of football and we have coaches who put an awful lot of work into making sure that we can all play football.

“And a hundred percent, we're going to take the same attitude to premier senior.”

Knocknagree also benefit from the from the Kerry influence through their coach, Cork-based Garda John O’Dwyer.

“He's a phenomenal coach,” O'Mahony said.

“He's in with Kerry U20s this year. He's fantastic to be at training, he's so technical in his knowledge and he really brought us on in terms of our defence and our attack.

“He's got great experience and I couldn't regard him highly enough, to be honest.”

Having won Division 2 of the league this year, they will be making a step up in the spring before doing so in the championship, which should serve as ideal preparation.

“So this year, funnily enough, we'll be playing Division 1 league and then premier senior championship,” O’Mahony said.

“It's great preparation. Like I said, we're acutely aware that we need to make hay while the suns shines, so we're going to really attack the next couple of years and enjoy playing at premier senior and we're hopefully going to really go and have a good go at it.”