St Brigid's snatch semi-final berth as qualifiers emerge in Offaly IFC

ST Brigid's came up on the rails to snatch a bonus semi-final place in the Tullamore Court Hotel Intermediate Football Championship when the final round of group games took place on Thursday evening.

Strongly fancied at the start of the campaign, St Brigid's looked like they would have to go the quarter-final route after losing to Ferbane in the last game but a surprisingly easy 3-10 to 1-2 win over Raheen secured them top spot in group 1 and direct qualification for the semi-finals.

As expected Tullamore took top spot in group 2, forced to work hard to beat Walsh Island by 3-12 to 1-13 for their third win and maximum points – Tullamore have been the most impressive team in the campaign so far, though they were in the easier of the two groups.

The final round of results mean that St Rynagh's will play Raheen and Ferbane take on Walsh Island in the two quarter-finals. The group winners, St Brigid's and Tullamore will be kept apart in the semi-finals and a draw will determine which of the quarter-final winners they meet. Edenderry and Kilcormac-Killoughey will both stay up in intermediate in 2026 as it is planned to have ten teams in this grade, the same as senior with six in senior “B”.

It ended up very tight in the two groups. Raheen were in pole position to top group 1 with two wins from two but it unravelled for them against St Brigid's in the second half as they ended up in third place. 1-3 to 0-2 down at half time, Raheen brought on their injured county star Dylan Hyland after 15 minutes but St Brigid's double teamed him to limit his possession of the ball.

Raheen have problems. Dylan Hyland is managing a groin injury that really needs rest, his first cousin Shane Hyland had been playing well at midfield but went off injured at the start of their win over Edenderry and his season is over. Former county player and one of their most important players Conor Carroll is now a big doubt after going off with a first half knee injury and another former county footballer James Lalor hasn't played this year.

The scale of Raheen's defeat condemned them to third place in the group. Ferbane joined them and St Brigid's on four points with a comfortable 3-14 to 1-8 win over Edenderry. Ferbane have improved after their first round loss to Raheen and are now live contenders. The results saw St Brigid's, Ferbane and Raheen all tie on four points with scoring difference from the games involving those three clubs determining the order – this had St Brigid's first on +12 points, Ferbane second on -3 and Raheen third on -9.

The same scoring difference formula also had to determine the two quarter-finalists in group 2 where Walsh Island, St Rynagh's and Kilcormac-Killoughey tied on two points for two spots. Their defeat by Tullamore didn't matter to Walsh Island, who were already through before hand as they couldn't be caught by both St Rynagh's and K-K. St Rynagh's had to defeat K-K by more than a point to get ahead of them and duly did this with a great come from behind 3-8 to 2-9 win. 2-5 to 1-4 behind at half time, St Rynagh's win also saw them leap frog over Walsh Island into second place – the scoring difference from the three games involving those teams had St Rynagh's on +2 points, Walsh Island on +1 and K-K gone on -3.

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The quarter-finals will take place on the weekend of September 12-14.