Ballincollig hope to harness strong underage with a clean bill of health next season

Relief for Ballincollig after they outgunned St Michael’s in the McCarthy Insurance Premier Senior Football relegation final.

Ballincollig had been one of the leading contenders in recent seasons and saved their status. St Michael’s, who battled for a few years before eventually getting promoted in 2022, now find themselves back competing in the Senior A Grade.

Manager Aidan Kelleher saw his charges start impressively in Ovens on Saturday. Darragh O'Mahony grabbed an early goal and the Collig ended up raising four green flags, with Danny Miskella, Dara Dorgan and David O'Leary also netting.

"Games of this magnitude are not good for you. 

This was massive for our club, especially with the young players we have coming through and I am over the moon we got the job done."

Ballincollig ended up using 30 players in the round-robin section as they had a host of major injuries. Without making too many excuses, Kelleher feels the number of absentees hurt them big time.

“We have been ravaged all year and I think getting a few players up to speed today helped us big time as losing this game was simply out of the question."

In the last group game, Ballincollig were demolished by Clonakilty and Kelleher was devastated after.

“We were down too many players but look fair play to Clonakilty, they played some great football but we simply didn’t turn up.”

The Ballincollig chief believes his team proved in previous campaigns that they can compete at this level.

“This is my fourth year involved with this team and we have been a match for most and to show the spirit of our captain Luke Fahy, he has been playing with injury all year. You could see today he is getting back to full fitness.”

Ballincollig were expecting a serious challenge.

“To be honest, it was hard to pick the lads up following our loss to Clonakilty but on the other side of the coin, we knew our panel was talented.

“Credit to Michael’s, they got a draw against us in last year’s championship and we only lost to the Barrs in the semi-final, who went on to win it out so we were asking ourselves a few questions coming into this game.”

For manager Kelleher and his coach Paddy O’Shea getting their team to put in a serious shift made them very proud.

“The response we got from the Clonakilty drubbing was immense.

We knew the character was in the team, but they needed to show it big time in a game of such importance.” 

Looking back on the campaign, Kelleher's first since taking over from Podsie O'Mahony as manager, there were some positives to take from it.

“We played well against Castlehaven but didn’t finish strong but without going into the injuries we had, there is no team in the championship could have functioned without the players we were down all season.”

Promising

Ballincollig have some quality underage talent, winning minor counties in 2024 and '25, but they also leaned on experience here.

“When you have players like Liam Jennings and Sean Kiely it is always a plus as they really drove the lads on before and on the pitch and having pride for the jersey was very evident.”

Ballincollig have reached semi-finals twice this decade and regularly made it out of the group. For Kelleher, they hope to be back in the mix next season.

“I think next season will be different once we have a full complement of players and with some good talent coming through hopefully there will be huge improvement.”