Some big questions remain to be answered as we move onto the final day of action on what has been a hectic weekend of action in the Club Football Championships. Who will be the final two teams into the Fairyhouse Steel SFC semi-finals, who will be thrown further into the relegation mire in the SFC and Meade Farm IFC and who will join Rathkenny in the last four of the IFC? Not to mind the jostling for positions on the final day of action in Group A of the Coolrite JBFC?

The games are all ticket and are priced as follows.

Fairyhouse Steel SFC & Meade Farm IFC Quarter Finals

Adult – €15
Student/OAP – €10
U-16’s – Free of Charge when accompanied by an adult

Fairyhouse Steel SFC & Meade Farm IFC Relegation Quarter Finals & Coolrite JBFC Round 5

Adult – €10
Student/OAP – €5
U-16’s – Free of Charge when accompanied by an adult

Tickets for all games can be purchased via the Meath GAA App which can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play Store.

Local derbies is the theme of the day in the Fairyhouse Steel Senior Football Championship quarter finals as Summerhill take on Trim in Navan while the evening throw in will see reigning champions Ratoath meet 2022 Intermediate Football champions Dunshaughlin in Ashbourne.

Summerhill have been models of consistency in recent years, reaching the final stages with regularity but they haven’t been able to get across the line, losing four of the last six finals. Could this be their year at last? 2021 Intermediate champions Trim stand in their way today and having lost out at the last eight stage twelve months ago, they will be eager to push on and in the process take a major scalp.

Ciaran Giblin stepped up to pull on the Bainisteoir bib this year and he has made an interesting switch for this encounter with Aaron Lynch pushing out to centre forward in a positional alteration with Alan Douglas who moves in the opposite direction to full forward. The Summerhill defence has made a habit out of snuffing out a marquee full forward and this could be a factor in their thinking with the need to get Lynch on the ball as often as possible being possibly best served by siting him on the forty. Eoin O’Connor is also a potential addition to the forward line having come on as a second half substitute two weeks ago against St. Peter’s Dunboyne. That was O’Connor’s first involvement of the season after a stint travelling.

Conor Gillespie shuffled the deck for the final round game two weeks ago which got much needed game time at the top level into fringe members of the team but he has reverted to their strongest XV for this encounter. The Ryan twins provide a very strong spine to their defence and with Ross being flanked by Adam McDonnell and team captain Padhraig Geraghty, the ‘Hill half back line is as good as their is in the county.

If the Summerhill defence can lock out the Trim attack then their forward line in which David Larkin remains a formidable presence will fancy their chances of racking up a match winning tally with Eoghan Frayne and Barry Dardis likely to be scorers in chief.

A large crowd is expected in Ashbourne for the evening throw in and the only pity about this game is that both sides are likely to be short of some key players due to injury. For Dunshaughlin Niall Murphy and Conor Gray remain sidelined while Bryan McMahon is a major pre match doubt for Ratoath having been forced off through injury against St. Colmcille’s fourteen days ago. Joey Wallace of course remains sidelined with a knee injury.

McMahon is of course the second top scorer in the Championship after the group stage and when he went off injured against St. Colmcille’s, Ratoath found scores difficult to come by as Daithi McGowan was left carrying the bulk of the scoring threat. More of the attack are going to have to step up to assist the man who topped the scoring charts after three rounds. McGowan has been a model of consistency to date and if he clicks inside along with Bobby O’Brien and the ever improving Ronan Byrne then they have the potential to rack up a match winning tally.

Ruairi Kinsella and Mathew Costello have been in electric form for Dunshaughlin, contributing 1-25 on the scoreboard between them in Group A but it must be a concern for the team management that two players have accounted for almost 67% of their tally thus far while the second top scorers are Fursey Blake with 1-00 and Aaron Murphy with 0-03. Another forward is going to have to step up and do some of the heavy lifting for Dunshaughlin to relieve the pressure on their top marksmen.

The three Meade Farm IFC quarter finals see St. Patrick’s take on Castletown, Duleek-Bellewstown meeting Meath Hill and Navan O’Mahonys face off against Ballivor.

Twelve months ago, St. Patrick’s fell to an agonising defeat to near neighbours Duleek-Bellewstown in the quarter final when coming out on the wrong side of an enthralling penalty shootout under the floodlights in Ashbourne. The lights won’t have to be on in Fr. Tully Park today and they are fancied by many to have enough to get over Casteltown. Ronan Kearns and Daithi Whyte do though have to plan without the services of Sean Emmanuel who is a notable absentee from the match day panel.

Navan is the venue for Duleek-Bellewstown and Meath Hill, and it was also the venue for their meeting in the 2022 Championship. On that occasion Meath Hill won out by three points, 2-11 to 1-11 and while Duleek-Bellewstown are looking to go one step further than last year when they eventually got to the final only to lose out to Dunshaughlin, Meath Hill are to be underestimated at their peril.

The third and final quarter final is a repeat of the final of twenty-one years ago, a day when Ballivor famously defeated Navan O’Mahonys as Raymond McKeown broke Navan hearts with a last gasp 45. O’Mahonys impressed in the group stage as they came through unbeaten but they will come up against a Ballivor side with pace to burn. Ballivor may be concerned at the manner in which a Rathkenny side who were defeated by O’Mahonys in Round 2 defeated a Walterstown side yesterday that Ballivor lost out to in Round 2 but as a line of form it is hard to know how much stock to place upon it. How the O’Mahonys full back line cope with the pacy inside forward line will be crucial while for O’Mahonys the likes of Aodhan Mallon, Jake Regan and Oisin O’Brien will pose plenty of questions for the Ballivor full back line to answer.