Camross' 'Mossy' Keyes looking to right the wrongs of last year's county final loss

Tomás ‘Mossy’ Keyes has been in superb form for Camross throughout the championship and now faces into his second county final this Sunday against Abbeyleix St Lazarian’s.

Last year was Mossy’s first time to play in a county final as Clough-Ballacolla recorded an impressive win and Mossy knows that this year is a chance to write the wrongs.

“We were missing a few key players from last year which meant a lot of the younger lads had to step up and we did to be fair, Dan Delaney, Rob Tyrell and myself. Last year, we were fairly disappointed with the final and going into this year we knew something had to change. Getting beat by nine points in a county final, it’s kind of nearly embarrassing walking off the pitch. Going into a county final, you want to do well and you want to win it obviously but we let ourselves down and the club down. We made a few changes this year and we’re training harder, we’ve definitely bonded more as a team. Tom Cuddy, who’s only up from minor, has added a huge amount to the team.”

The Camross team is littered with players with multiple county medals and Mossy feels that such experience is crucial for a young player’s development.

“We’ve the older lads to encourage us, they know the roots of it the last few years. They’re very good at giving you feedback and how to improve. You’re taking that into consideration, it’s valuable as well as they’re always encouraging and wanting us to express ourselves and enjoy every match. With Ciaran (Collier), Dwane (Palmer) and Zane (Keenan), it’s great to have them on board as you need that experience going into the championship. Especially Zane when he came on against Clough-Ballacolla, we needed that push and you could say it was nearly the turning point of the game.”

Their semi-final contest against Clough-Ballacolla saw Camross losing by nine points having to play into the wind. The young Camross man knew that the start of the second-half was crucial if they were to come out victorious.

“Going in at half-time nine points down, we were disappointed with ourselves of course but there was a huge wind. You could see that with Enda Rowland’s goal from the puckout in the match beforehand. We still had belief in ourselves to right the wrongs of the first-half because we didn’t get going, we didn’t play at all. It was like the ball was in the Ballacolla end of the field for the whole first period. We were lucky with Tom Cuddy’s goal at the start and then we picked off a few points. Tom popped up again with another fantastic goal, it was a difficult enough angle but to be fair to him he stuck it into the net.”

Mossy knows that they can’t take Abbeyleix for granted as they earned their place the same way that Camross did. He’s also faced them in recent years underage and he knows the potential that the side has.

“We got to a league semi-final and that was a really tough game against Abbeyleix which went to extra-time. We know how good Abbeyleix are and they are an upcoming team. They have been coming for the last few years, I remember playing them at underage and we used to get hammered. Last year, we got the better of them in the U-20 semi-final. It was good to win the league as it gave us a lot of confidence going into the championship. Two wins from two saw us straight into a semi-final and we lost out to Borris-Kilcotton in the final game after the manager had changed a few things around.”

Camross and Abbeyleix St Lazarian's throws-in at 3.30pm on Sunday, October 8.