Fitzpatrick: Stars are shining too brightly to hide this time

By Paul Fitzpatrick

In an interview some years ago, Kingscourt Stars and Cavan great Jim Reilly spelled out what many already knew. Kingscourt, he said, are perched in the south-eastern corner of the county, a long way from the traditional power base, and tend to come into the championship under-hyped.

Cliché calls it “hiding in the long grass” and there is a lot of truth in it. Bordered by Magheracloone and Carrickmacross in Monaghan and Meath Hill, Nobber, Drumconrath and Kilmainhamwood in the Royal County, within Cavan their nearest neighbours are intermediate clubs Shercock and Bailieborough Shamrocks.

Until Cuchulainns returned to senior ranks last year, there wasn’t another Cavan senior club within a half hour drive. It’s an intangible thing but Jim was certainly on to something; Kingscourt sit in splendid isolation and it’s a nice place to be.

Speaking of Cuchulainns, they currently sit top of the table, slightly ahead of the Stars on score difference (by a single point). The pair, who meet in the next round, are the only teams of the 12 in the competition to have won both matches to date.

Kingscourt have impressed in the wins over Ramor and Mullahoran and what’s most ominous is that there is clearly more to come, with players to come back. If this is the baseline, it’s a high one and, off the back of it, the Stars’ cover, unusually, is blown.

So far so good

There was an assuredness about both performances to date which suggested that last year was not merely a brilliantly-timed run through the championship but the start of something more sustainable.

The Stars boast a potent line-up, with a physically-strong spine to the team, pace where it’s required and scoring threats. They have fielders around the middle in Paddy Meade, Peter Corrigan and Ciaran Dermody, with talisman Padraig Faulkner still to come back.

Goalkeeper Tom Martin has done well, too and in centre-half Aaron Shekleton, they have an heir to Alan Clarke; nobody was tougher than Toasty but ‘Shek’ has with more ball-playing ability. He played corner-back for Cavan U20s but his robust style appears more naturally suited to the centre, where his physicality and athleticism can have a greater influence.

Barry Tully, meanwhile, is still going strong as he turns 36, ducking and dodging through what the great Hugh McIlvanney once called “the murderous crossfire”.

The other Barry, Reilly, is back on the panel; a magician like him could well conjure something when least expected.

Identity

And then there’s Jordie Morris.

When Morris gets the ball and squares off a defender, the damage is already done. Invariably, he will get a shot off in that situation or bring others into the play. His balance, power and directness make him extremely difficult to contain but one of his most valuable traits is his unselfishness.

A lot of forwards build their identity around the number in brackets after their name. Morris doesn’t seem overly bothered.

Witness last year’s county final when, with the job done, he allowed substitute Michael Gargan to take a tap-over free at the end rather than gilding his own tally. It was a small moment but an instructive one. Morris is the headline act in that attack but he doesn’t need to play like one.

Much is made of Gowna’s lineage but Kingscourt can point to previous generations of the same families, too. Their greatest era ended as Gowna’s properly began - in August, 1994 when they surrendered their county title to the men from the lough shore, losing that semi-final by 1-11 to 2-4. The Stars had won six of the previous eight Senior Championships and few, if any, would have predicted it would be 17 years before they got back into the winners’ enclosure.

In more modern times, though, they have not defended their titles particularly well. In 2011, they were beaten 1-16 to 0-8 by Cavan Gaels in the quarter-final. In 2016, they again failed to make a semi-final, falling to a young Ramor side at the last-eight stage.

There seems to be something different about them this year alright, although it’s very early yet. How Kingscourt got to this point is interesting in itself.

In 2023, they were humiliated in the county final and there was a hangover from that loss. Apart from 1985, when they leaked three goals, the Stars had never failed to show up in a county final but they were embarrassed by Gowna three years ago, conceding five goals and being out-played all over the pitch.

The following year, they won just one game in the group and ended up in the relegation play-offs. That carried through to the early rounds of the All-County League last season. League form comes with a health warning these days but six early losses certainly did little to dispel the notion that the Stars were a spent force.

All had changed, however, by the evening of October 12. The Oliver Plunkett Cup sitting on the table in the Kingscourt dressing-room was proof that the coup had come off to perfection. Down the corridor, the Gowna men were ashen-faced; a 27-point turnaround in two years had sent their football world spinning off its axis.

How did it come about? There are a lot of moving parts but principally, the emergence of young players like the aforementioned Shekleton, Cormac McAvinney and Caoimhín McGee among others strengthened the squad, as did the return of Dillon and the emergence of John McCullough as a full-back of real substance.

Allied to this, sometimes a manager just fits with a team. Louthman Colin Kelly is well respected and well-travelled and has enjoyed, like any manager, successes and failures. But what he clearly possesses along with the knowledge of how to prepare a team is self-belief and a bit of swagger. It took more than a little chutzpah to mastermind that ambush last October and those qualities seem to suit Kingscourt.

The Kingscourt lads, past and present, don’t go in for false modesty. The iconic star on their chests – which unfortunately is no more – was always a signifier that they did things a little differently, that they have a sense of themselves.

The intriguing thing now is how they cope with the change in status. Last year, after their poor league and the struggles of 2024, nobody was looking too closely at them. Wins over Ballyhaise (twice), Ballinagh and Cavan Gaels propelled them into a semi-final and once they got a sniff, they followed the scent to the final whistle on the big day.

Of course, nobody ever took Kingscourt lightly – we recall a chat night before the 2015 final in McCabe’s Bar in Ballyjamesduff. Plucked from the crowd was Ballinagh’s leader Padraic O’Reilly, who resisted the urge to play to the Castlerahan crowd when he warned how tough Kingscourt are to beat. The following day, he was proven right.

Renewal

However, the dynamic is different this time. The luxury of building quietly as the championship develops has disappeared; the cavalry is stampeding towards them, determined to take the scalp of the champions.

Gowna, sloppy against Ballyhaise, looked hungry against a slightly-jaded Crosserlough, winners in 2020 and 2014. Cuchulainns are surfing a wave; Arva, too, are entitled to believe things are falling into place just four years after losing a junior final. Ramor are idling but have made the last five semi-finals and four finals in a decade; they can’t be discounted.

A fascinating renewal is playing out and at this point, only one thing is certain: the Stars are shining too brightly to hide in the long grass this time around.