Kerry and Kilkenny are two counties whose GAA heritage needs no introduction. The traditional field masters of big ball and sliotar have come together to provide the finalists for this year’s Minor Softball Singles, as the Kingdom’s Daire Keane squares off against Jack Holden from the Marble County.
Since its first running in 1949, no county has produced more Minor Singles champions than Kilkenny, whose big alley tradition has seen the cup heading to Noreside on no fewer than 10 occasions, including a six-year stranglehold spanning 1979 and 1984 when first cousins Billy Bourke and Michael ‘Ducksy’ Walsh dominated the grade.
After winning the inaugural minor singles championship in ’49, and adding a second title in 1954, the intervening 64 years have been lean for the Kingdom – a famine that Keane has the opportunity to end this year.
Both Keane and Holden booked their place in the final with comprehensive semi-final victories over Galway’s Fiachra Mulkerrins and Cavan’s Conor Owens (the 2017 All-Ireland U17 champion) respectively, and when adding their relatively straightforward paths through the provincial championships, they remain largely untested and therefore relatively unknown quantities as they take to the Croke Park stage.
Something of a contrast in styles is promised. Holden – the younger of the two – hails from a more traditional big alley background and has enjoyed considerable success through the juvenile ranks, with an U16 Singles All-Ireland his crowning achievement.
Despite being eligible for minor again next year, Holden is the bigger of the two and casts a more physically imposing shadow.
From Kilfane, Holden comes from a family with strong handball connections and sister Aoife was part of the Kilkenny duo who captured the Intermediate Doubles last October.
Perhaps less of a traditional 60x30 player, Keane, from the well-known Ballymacelligott club near Tralee, is a superb athlete and plays a high paced and dynamic game and has been honing his skills with top level opposition in the South West such as Dominic Lynch.
Keane recently lost out narrowly to eventual winner Eoghan McGinnity in the semi-final of the 17 and Under Singles at the World Championships in Minneapolis, and has taken that form and adapted seamlessly to the larger dimensions of the 60x30 court.
With little head-to-head history, it is hard to pick a winner, as Wexford senior player Gavin Buggy – somebody who is familiar with the games and styles of both players, having watched both from the close vantage point of a referee’s chair – can attest to.
“It really is too tough to call,” said Buggy, “and it could well come down to which of them applies themselves better to the court and adapts to the glass sidewall on the night, and of course the occasion.
“They have contrasting styles, Jack Holden will be more suited to 60x30 and might have an advantage from that sense, but Daire is a fierce competitor and I’d think it’s a high possibility that it will go to a third game either way, and at that stage, I know it’s cliché, but it’s 50-50.”
Handball fans have been treated to some high quality minor finals in recent seasons and it seems certain that another strong contest is in store in the traditional curtain-raiser off Jones’ Road.
Will the Cats get their eleventh title and reassert their dominance over the minor ranks, or will the cup make its first journey to the south-west corner in 64 years? When an event is this close to call, the audience is usually in for a treat.