Premier SFC: Familiar stage but a new opponent for Nemo Rangers and Alan O'Donovan

Nemo - winners of five titles in the past decade - face Mallow in Sunday's semi-final

In a Nemo Rangers career that has spanned more than a decade, Alan O’Donovan has become quite used to late-autumn activity.

On five occasions, he has been part of county senior championship-winning sides, with last year’s final defeat to Castlehaven a new experience for many of the Nemo side – 2013 was the last time they had been beaten in a decider, also against the Haven.

Sunday’s semi-final against Mallow at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh (2.30pm) affords them a chance to reach the showpiece occasion again. Only twice, in 2018 and 2021, have they not made the last four in O’Donovan’s time, though it was a close-run thing as last week’s quarter-final against Clonakilty required a penalty shootout win.

As captain, O’Donovan – a process engineer with Thermo Fisher in Ringaskiddy – was willing to put his hand up to take a kick from the spot but, equally, he felt confident that Nemo had the firepower to manage without him.

“I said I’d hit one but that there were definitely better options there than me!” he laughs.

“I’m not much of a soccer player, not much of a penalty-taker – I’ll hit one if they want me to but there were definitely better candidates.

“In fairness to our lads, a couple of them would have played a bit of soccer or whatever and we were confident when they were going up that they were going to get them.

“They were fairly cool getting ready for it and then when you have Micheál [Martin] in goal, you’d be confident that he’d get his hand to one or two of them and he did that.

“When you get to the knockout stage, you know it’s going to be a possibility, so the lads that, one, thought that they might be on the pitch at the end of the game, after 80 minutes and, two, that they’d be comfortable hitting one – they knocked around with Micheál after training for a few minutes.”

As much as it’s familiar to have Nemo, Castlehaven and St Finbarr’s at this stage, Mallow represent a new face.

There is little history to go on but the fact that they beat the Barrs in the group stage means that Nemo are forewarned and forearmed.

“I don’t think we’ve played them since the new group format came in,” O’Donovan says.

“Obviously, they’re a different division to us so we wouldn’t have come across the a whole pile at under-age. For the most part, it’s a new team to be coming across.

“They are where they are and if we want to be in the final, we’ll have to be at our best.

“They’ve taken a couple of big scalps along the way and with the players they have around the pitch, if you’re not at your best, they’re going to beat you.

“We know what’s ahead of us and we’ll have to be as prepared as we can be.”

Another change for this year is that O’Donovan doesn’t have his father Paul as manager – he stepped down after last year’s championship, having led Nemo to three county championships.

“I probably don’t see him as much,” Alan says, “I only see him two or three times a week instead of six times a week now!

“He would have been coaching me since I was five or six right up to minor, U21, senior. I’d still chat to him a good bit about football.

“He was always good for advice and he’s a good sounding-board.

“Managements move on and players move on and you just get on with it.”

Robbie O’Dwyer is the man in charge now but it has been a case of evolution rather than revolution for Nemo. Certainly, O’Donovan’s partnership at midfield with Barry Cripps was not in need of surgery.

“I suppose it just happened naturally,” he says of the chemistry between the pair.

“We’re two fellas who don’t exactly try to complicate things too much.

“We know each other fairly well, we get on well and we just try to help each other as much as we can.

“We have each other’s backs. If you need to cover a fella, you’re getting back – he’s got me out of plenty holes the last couple of years!

“He’s great to play with. He’s honest out – he’d put his head where you wouldn’t put a shovel!”

If they are to make it back to the final, and beyond, they will likely be to the fore. O’Donovan knows that Nemo weren’t far away in the two-point final defeat to the Haven last year and that the margins are fine.

“Yeah, you were disappointed but plenty of times we’ve won games and won finals not playing our best,” he says.

“You just have to take it on the chin, sometimes you don’t play well, but you just get on with it.

“I think after 58 minutes, we were actually ahead – Barry Cripps kicked a mighty score.

“Going into 60 minutes on the clock, the game was a draw – no team is the worst team in the world and no team is the best team in the world.

“It all depends on the winning and the losing. You try not to get too low down and listen to people saying you’re the worst team in the world and try not to go too high listening to people saying you’re the best team ever.

“You try to stay somewhere in the middle, keeping it on an even keel.”