PREVIEW: David versus Goliath clash in the offing as Brackens search for maiden football title

It has been a very long time since a senior county football title has made its way to Templemore...87 years to be exact.

You have to go all the way back to 1936 to see the towns name on the roll of honour, in a game where Templemore Éire Óg claimed the club’s second crown after beating Arravale Rovers by two points with the Templemore Éire Óg team which encompassed Templemore, Clonmore and Killea in its ranks at that time.

A lot has changed in the intervening years of course, with the relatively new incarnation of JK Brackens back in 1992 but in that time the service to the big ball has become massive in the club, and unlike a lot of clubs in the mid-division, it is definitely not subservient to hurling and, if anything, is an even bigger priority given the recent success at underage in the club.

At the start of the year, there would have been fairly high expectations in both codes considering the success of the hurlers last year in winning the club’s first-ever mid-title, but early losses in the year scuppered the small ball progress and a relegation scrap ensued, but it didn’t even come close to derailing the form of the football team with a very solid campaign under the belt heading into this weekend’s county decider.

“At the start of the year, we were hoping to go on a good run in both,” said JK Brackens manager Michael Hyland.

“ It didn’t happen with the hurling, unfortunately. We got off to a bad start and we were just behind the curve then.

“But the win over Upperchurch in the relegation last week has definitely given us a bit of momentum in the football.

“This year we’ve won all our group games and we were happy enough with how we played in the quarter-final despite conceding a late goal in that game to make it a bit closer.

“Then against Upperchurch in the football. Last year we played them two weeks in a row in the hurling and football and lost both games, so it was nice to turn the tide this time around,” he said.

The trajectory of the club has been on an upward curve for some time now, but it is especially true of their fortunes in the football side of things with novel success at county level over the last decade at various age grades putting the Templemore club to the forefront of potential winners of a county title, and they have another chance to achieve that this Sunday. Possible revenge for 2019.

“We’ve won a good few underage titles recently,” Hyland highlighted.

“The club has won a minor and two U21s in the last few years and the U17s are still going strong this year so there’s a lot of work being done over a number of years in both hurling and football.

“We’re a strong dual club so there are always the same players playing both codes. We have a fair crossover between the two teams, but we have Brian Horgan in the hurling, Kevin Mulryan in the football coaching roles, and Stephen Butler in charge of the S and C; they have managed it really well all year because our injury profile has been good all year so we’re very happy with that.

“Obviously, we made the final four years ago and I suppose we were very young and inexperienced at the time and it was a bit of an eye-opener on the day.

“But I think we are after improving in the years since and it’s great to get back to a final.

“Commercials are the standard bearers for the last number of years.

“They’ve been the team to beat nearly every year and anytime they’ve won the county final they’ve gone on and competed well in Munster, winning a Munster club and they were very unlucky not to make an All-Ireland club final a few years ago.

“We know all about them, they have a lot of players playing for Tipp or who have played for Tipp at some stage and they are strong favourites for a reason.

“But look, we’ll be hoping to give a good account of ourselves on the day and look after our own house and, after that, you never know it might all fall into place for us,” he finished.