Pressure on the Village as the Rower look to cause shock in intermediate final

The first bit of major hurling championship silverware for the season will be handed out on Sunday evening when James Stephens and Rower Inistioge meet in the Michael Lyng Motors Intermediate Hurling Championship Final at Nowlan Park.

The Village are back in a final for the second year on the trot and the city club will be desperate to make up for the disappointment that they felt when losing out to Danesfort last term.

Ever since that 2-20 to 1-16 defeat, the Kells Road outfit would have been targeting this weekend as their opportunity for a bit of redemption and after an almost faultless league and championship campaign, they will go into this Sunday’s final as red hot favourites with the aim of returning to senior level at the second time of asking.

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A word of warning for any Village followers however, they were in almost this exact position a mere 12 months ago and things didn’t go their way when it mattered most.

Still with a management team consisting of former club and county stars in Eoin Larkin, Jackie Tyrrell and Matthew Ruth, it will be built into the players mind that they must show up on Sunday if they are to return to the top tier of hurling in Kilkenny and a level which they feel they should be competing at.

The Intermediate championship has proven to be a very difficult competition to win over the years with seasoned senior outfits in Thomastown, Tullaroan and Glenmore among the few that took their time to win the Hanrahan Cup.

While it is no shock that the Village are competing in this final, Rower-Inistioge’s first final appearance since they were relegated from senior in 2021 is one that is very much against the grain.

Even so, they will go into the game confident that if they can hit a peak performance that they won’t be far away and after a hugely impressive semi-final success over Lisdowney, the form is in the locker for the South Kilkenny outfit. The Village are probably a more rounded team than their opponents but in Eoghan Lyng, the Rower have arguably the form player in any grade in Kilkenny with his 2-11 tally in the last four win over Lisdowney a real standout moment in this year's championship.

It wasn’t a once off either with the Kilkenny panelist scoring heavily throughout the campaign for the Rower and if he can do something similar on Sunday then anything is possible.

Coupled with the return to form of Richie Leahy and impetus of youth in Ned Spellman and PJ Mackey, it’s an attack that could do damage.

The Village’s star man on the other hand is their team captain Cian Kenny and while he didn’t look fit when playing over 50 minutes in the win over Tullogher-Rosbercon, the extra two weeks will have done the all-star nominee the world of good as he looks to shake off the broken thumb injury he picked up a couple of weeks ago.

Just where he plays though will be topic of debate as he’s just at home at centre-back as he is in midfield while don’t rule out another appearance at full-forward if he’s not 100% fit. James Stephens have a lot more than just Kenny though with Tadhg O’Dwyer, Eoin Guilfoyle and Stephen Manogue more than capable in attack in addition to Sean Deely and Luke Scanlon manning the midfield area.

Ed Lauhoff looks another star in the making and like Kenny, he could line up anywhere from attack to defence but there is a danger that the team could overthink or complicate things after failing to get over the line in 2025.

What makes the Village standout the most at this level of hurling is their strength in depth though with the likes of Willie Spencer, Niall Brassil, Eoin Deely, and Conor McEvoy all more than capable of playing a role when needed.

It’s a final filled with history and it’s a repeat of the senior decider from 1976 with both believing that’s where they rightly belong and while it could be closer than expected, the Village should be celebrating come the final whistle.