After Valley Rovers' great escape, Eoin Guinane is looking forward to pushing on in 2026

Valley Rovers produced the great escape in 2025 as they avoided the drop from the McCarthy Insurance Group Premier SFC.

The Carrigdhoun club deservedly defeated Carbery Rangers in the relegation play-off after a replay, but it had looked like that they were heading down when trailing by seven points after 42 minutes in the drawn encounter. 

Valley Rovers were the better team in the replay with Fiachra Lynch’s goal the catalyst for the victory as they won 1-16 to 1-10.

It was a beautiful floated delivery into Valley's new player-manager for the green flag by impressive young player Eoin Guinane.

It was the 20-year-old’s breakthrough campaign this year having come off the bench in 2024.

“We were obviously disappointed to end up in the relegation play-off,” Guinane says, who was a key figure for the Cork U20 hurlers last season.

“It’s a game that no-one really wants to be in at the start of the year, but there was relief in the end. Obviously every child in Valley Rovers wants to be playing in the top grade.

“Hopefully we just bring ourselves together for next year and push on.

“Relegation play-offs are different kind of games, a lot of pressure. You don’t want to be involved in them. You’re fighting for your survival at the end of the day and sure, once you go down, it can be very hard to get back up. 

“I think the main thing is just keeping your head above the water really, that’s what we did. We knew we didn’t play well during the year, there was more in us. We eventually got our stuff together and got a result to stay up.” 

Guinane made his first championship start for Valley Rovers' footballers back in July in a six-point defeat to rivals Newcestown. It wasn’t the best of starts for the Carrigdhoun team.

“Adult level is different to underage. It’s much faster and physical. This year was probably my first time playing a lot of football in years.

“I missed a lot of the previous year with injury. Once you get the confidence up, it’s easy then when the older players in Valley Rovers are helping you and guiding you.

“There’s some very experienced players that have played at the very top level, so you can always just rely on them to help you.

“I was confident in myself too that I would play regularly. I was playing well enough before the championship started.

“I was pleased with how it went to be fair and of course the season ended on a positive note. We are all looking forward to hopefully pushing on and getting out of the group next year.” 

Valley Rovers haven’t qualified for the business end since the 2021 campaign which included a group win over Nemo Rangers. They face the city side in their group next year along with Newcestown and St Michael’s.

“We have to learn from what happened last season. We can take it as a slap on the wrist really, so that if you’re not up to the required level, you can easily get caught and get dragged into a relegation battle. We know that ourselves now.

“We know what went wrong last season and hopefully we can try and fix it now for next year.

“It’s a tough group. We know what to expect from Newcestown. We played them last season. Nemo obviously made the county final over the last few years and St Michael’s drew with Ballincollig in their group last season.

“We’ll be prepared and hopefully now we can push on. I can remember being up on the bank when we beat Nemo Rangers in 2021. That was on in Ballygarvan.

“Obviously that brought great joy. I remember everyone was talking about that win for a good while afterwards and hopefully we’ll maybe repeat it again next season.”