St Fintan's Mountrath’s decade 'in the wilderness' could end with Laois GAA IHC County Final glory

St Fintan’s Mountrath are almost similar to Clonad, the side they'll face in this year's Laois GAA IHC Final, in that they haven’t reached a County Final since 2014. 

Their captain, Paul Rice, spoke about their epic extra-time victory over Trumera that sealed their place in Saturday’s IHC final.

“We went ahead a few different times by four or five points, maybe six once or twice, but Trumera are never beaten either, they will give you everything they have and they’ve plenty of heart and fight in them. That's one thing about them, they never back away too quickly. It was just great to get over the line because I suppose with this group we’ve been lacking finals and lacking that little bit of belief to get over the line when it matters. To finally do it then, it is a relief. I think it was 2014 that we were last in a final, the Senior ‘B’ at that time, against Ballinakill. That’s a good few years ago at this age. Clonad are nearly in the same boat as us. The two of us have sort of been in the wilderness, and we're after suffering more relegations than promotions anyway, put it that way,” he said.

With the clubs having been at this grade for many years, they’re no strangers to facing each other during the group stages or even in quarter-finals.

“We played them in the Leinster League final last year, and we played them in the first round of the championship last year. We beat them on both occasions. The previous year, they beat us in the quarter-final and beat us as well. Look, I don't think you could take them for granted because they seem to be a different outfit this year by all accounts. I looked back at their semi-final on Clubber and they seem to be fit and they're hurling fierce well. I don't know if you could read too much into previous outings against them, if you know what I mean. They seem to be a different article this year, to be fair to them. They're fit and they’ve a good mix of younger lads after coming in this year that I didn't see last year or the year before. They have plenty for us to worry about, but look, I suppose we're there now anyway,” Rice said.

Rice ended by saying that a win on Saturday would give their younger players a big platform for when they start playing adult hurling next year, with as many as 10 players set to make the step up, according to the Mountrath captain.

“It would be massive, absolutely massive. There's great work going on there in the underage ranks for the last number of years and there's plenty of cups after coming home there at different age groups. Even next year, I think someone said there were 10 lads coming up from Minor and to give them a platform at Premier Intermediate going forward would be massive. It would bring a good buzz and it would be easy to get lads down next winter when we have to run in the muck if we make the step up,” he ended.

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