Nine team Offaly SFC for 2025 after Cappincur decide against taking option of promotion

THERE will almost certainly be a nine team Offaly Senior Football Championship in 2025 after Cappincur have, as expected, turned down the option of promotion.

Beaten by Clonbullogue in the Senior “B” Football Championship final last year, Cappincur's decision means that plans for a ten team Senior Football Championship and six team Senior “B” Football Championship will have to wait for one more year.

It had been planned that there would be no relegation from the 2024 Senior Football Championship and that the two senior “B” finalists would go up, thus resulting in ten and six team championships for 2025 – with senior in two groups of five and all six teams grouped together in senior “B”.

However, they couldn't force the beaten senior B finalists up while the relegated team could also have availed of their right to go down if they wished – Bracknagh, however, have decided to stay up.

Cappincur's call is not a surprise and no one will have any issue with it. They performed really well to reach the SFC “B” final last year and battled with great heart against Clonbullogue before falling away to a 2-10 to 0-11 defeat.

With some of their players having a lot of mileage on the clock, senior football would represent a big challenge for them and they are right to try and go up by winning the senior “B” - they will be competitive in that in 2025. Ger Treacy, Enda Daly, Diarmuid Carroll, Eoin Carroll and Jason Gethings are among the players with a lot of football played and Cappincur could be heading into a transition period before they come again – they have come and gone out of top flight football in very regular cycles since the early 1990s, doing well for a period of time, taking the occasional scalp before drifting back and then returning.

It means that the Senior Football Championship will consist of nine teams in groups of 5 and 4 – the teams are Tullamore, Ferbane, Edenderry, Shamrocks, Rhode, Ballycommon, Durrow, Bracknagh and Clonbullogue.

The knockout format will be finalised next week at a County Board meeting but the 2024 system where every team qualified for quarter-finals irrespective of results went down like a lead balloon with supporters and will almost certainly be discarded. The likely outcome is the 2024 finalists and semi-finalists will be seeded in different groups with the top team going into the semi-finals and second and third playing in two quarter-finals.

It also means that there will be no relegation in 2025 as they go for two groups of five in 2026 – and that will give a bit of breathing space to the 2024 senior “B” champions, Clonbullogue as well as other potential relegation candidates such as Bracknagh, Ballycommon, Durrow and even Shamrocks, who looked to have turned a corner in 2024 with great group wins over Ferbane and Edenderry, but are still very much a work in progress with the jury still out on them.

The senior B will consist of the seven teams in the one group with the top four qualifying into two semi-finals. Those teams are Cappincur, Daingean, Clara, Tubber, Ballycumber, Gracefield and the 2024 intermediate champions, Ballinagar.

That has the makings of a very good championship with all the teams looking quite evenly matched. It will mean additional weekends but it will be possible to get it completed in a timely fashion.

Once news of Cappincur's intentions became apparent some weeks ago, there was speculation that another team such as Daingean, Gracefield or Clara might seek promotion. Clara did consider it but their decision to stay where they are is a wise one – while they have a long time history of being a competitive senior football club and a return to that is their ambition, the bottom line is that they didn't make the final in 2024 and they will want to get there on merit.

Another year in senior “B” won't be a bad thing for them as some good young players continue to develop. It is also very possible that Clonbullogue would have stayed back had they not won senior “B” in 2024. While they do look well equipped to survive in senior for a while anyway, they had a burning desire to win senior “B” after a succession of near misses and may not have had the appetite for going up otherwise.

It means that for one year only, the two blue riband football championships will consist of nine and seven clubs before going to ten and six for 2026.