Tale of woe to have happy ending for Na Fianna

The preview of any relegation final is always a tale of woe. How the mighty have fallen. Too good to be in this position. Harsh on so many great players. But the reality of the situation is that Na Fianna and Simonstown can have no complaints that they will contest next Friday night's SFC relegation play-off in Dunganny.

Of course both sides can point to the loss of key players and the negative impact that has had on their ability to compete with the others, but every team and club seems to be missing players. It's how you react to those setbacks that sets teams apart.

Simonstown and Na Fianna have not won a game between them in this years championship. That is a little more surprising from a Simonstown point of view as they had a decent FL Div 2 campaign that saw them win seven of their 11 games and gain promotion with a semi-final win over Duleek-Bellewstown before losing the final to Seneschalstown.

Na Fianna were relegated from FL Div 1 with just two wins from their 11 games, so their form coming into the championship was worrying.

Both sides lost their relegation semi-finals after extra-time and while Na Fianna's loss was the more surprising of the two, it was Simonstown's defeat that will be more worrying as they looked set ofr a comfortable beating before Seneschalstown gave them a lifeline with two soft goals.

However, despite being given that lift Simonstown couldn't build on it and suffered.

Simonstown are an aging team and while they have some good young players coming through it could take another couple of years for them to flourish at adult level. Na Fianna aren't exactly all spring chickens themselves, but they do seem to have more legs in attack and in Sean Rafferty and Ethan Devine they have class acts on board. If Shane Walsh has stayed home after returning from Australia for the semi-final then that will be a further boost and it could be a spell back in the second tier for the 2016 and 2017 Keegan Cup champions. Verdict - Na Fianna.