First North final meeting of Lorrha and Shannon Rovers

By James Hayden

Lorrha and Shannon Rovers go for North Championship glory when they square off in the Intermediate Hurling final on Saturday in Nenagh (6.00pm)

Indeed, it is the first time the sides have met in a North adult championship final with Lorrha aiming to win a third intermediate success to add to those from 1946 and 2007, both of which they went on to achieve county glory. Shannon Rovers are going for their tenth North intermediate success with the last coming in 2010 when they also defeated a neighbouring club in Borrisokane.

Having been relegated from Premier Intermediate last year, Lorrha would have been seen as many people’s favourites, not just for the North Championship, but the county as well, and they showed What they can do with an impressive semi-final win over Moneygall which they won by twenty points.

While Moneygall were short a number of key players on the evening, Lorrha were flowing right from the start, keen to hit the ground running under new manager Ken Hogan who has come home after a successful spell with St Rynagh’s, joined by former Offaly forward Brian Carroll, who coached Moyne-Templetuohy to the county intermediate title last year.

Having reach an O Riain Cup final in 2020, Lorrha fell all the way out of the grade last year, not helped by being beset by injuries which impacted them throughout. Key among then was Patrick ‘Bonner’ Maher who missed the entire campaign with an Achilles tendon injury, and showed what Lorrha missed with 2-2 from play against Moneygall.

It wasn’t just his scoring but his reading of the game from full forward which helped pull the Moneygall defence around from where Lorrha have loads of scoring power in the Fogarty brothers, David, Chris, and Tipp U20 panellist Colm, Cian Hogan, and Eoin McIntyre.

Clamping down on that Lorrha attack will be one of the focuses for Shannon Rovers management of former Kiladangan county winning manager Brian Lawlor and John Flannery, the latter who would have been involved with Lorrha Rovers Gaels minor teams in recent years and will be familiar with some of the Lorrha players.

Shannon Rovers were not fancied to progress from the semi-final against Borrisokane, but it was a win that was thoroughly deserved, even if they needed penalties to get there in the end.

Injury hit during the league, the Rovers seem to be timing things well and will need to produce a similar performance to get the better of Lorrha. They are well organised with a good work ethic, while they also have plenty of size right around the field.

Conal Moran and Tom Hogan led the way in the scoring stakes in the semi-final while Michael Tierney has an eye for goal if he gets enough service. Back the field, the focus will be on Matt Tierney, Michael Slattery, Austin Tierney, and Alan Hannigan to set the tone and not give Lorrha the space from which to use the pace and scoring ability in the team.

Lorrha will go into the game as favourites, but Shannon Rovers won’t mind that. They relish the underdogs tag, as they showed in the semi-final, and the longer the game goes on with them in with a chance of winning, the greater pressure will come on Lorrha, but their greater spread of scoring threat might just be the difference. Verdict: Lorrha