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So, finally, after having more dates than Carrie Bradshaw, this fixture proceeds today. Both camps would have cursed those pre-Christmas postponements at the time but they've long since come round to the view that the layoff was probably a blessing in disguise.
After playing devastating football for most of the autumn and winter, Crokes in particular were showing signs of staleness in a schedule that involved them making the final of four different senior competitions. They were two points down entering injury-time against Aherlow in Cashel in the previous round and only scraped past Rathmore by a point in the final of the O'Donoghue East Kerry Cup. It would also have been a real squeeze for Ambrose O'Donovan and Kieran O'Leary to be fit to start in any pre-Christmas showdown with Nemo, but now O'Donovan's back is over that car accident while O'Leary has got in a lot of ballwork and fitness work to approach something like the level he was operating at before breaking his leg during the county quarter-final.
Heavyweight football clashes within provinces can be quite anti-climatic – Crossmaglen-St Gall's back in November was a particularly tetchy, scrappy affair – but if any club football fixture is unlikely to disappoint, it's Nemo and Crokes. Both are tremendous exponents of support play and very well-balanced; one of the stories and ironies of the Crokes' county final triumph was that while Colm Cooper would deservedly end up man of the match, he barely touched the ball while his team opened up an early five-point lead.
Nemo have made no secret that they will be out to prevent good ball coming into Cooper, and with Johnny Buckley carrying an injury, Crokes could be under pressure to win ball around the middle. We expect them to win enough though to give their marginally superior forwards enough chances to repeat their win over Nemo over four years ago.
Verdict Dr Crokes
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