Abbeydorney and Ballyduff clash in the Garveys Supervalu Kerry SHC Round 1 tie this Saturday in Austin Stack Park (5.30pm). Mike O’Halloran looks at both teams’ chances…

Ballyduff take on Abbeydorney in the final game of the first round,.

Last year Abbeydorney opened their account with a well deserved win over the eventual county champions Kilmoyley.

They then proceeded to come to Austin Stack Park to take on Ballyduff, with a team that had several positional switches, which I presume was done to negate the threat of Ballyduff.

Unfortunately it backfired badly and Ballyduff accounted for them easily. I thought at the time that if Abbeydorney had stuck to the line out that defeated Kilmoyley the result might have been different.

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There is no doubt that Abbeydorney have the players to lift the Neilus Flynn Cup but failure to put three games together in the championship has been their downfall.

Abbeydorney will be one of the best-prepared teams in the championship and all they lack is a little bit more self-belief and a little harder edge.

Time now also to unleash the young guns on Ballyduff and make use of the pace and hurling skill of Stevie Sullivan, who can tear defences apart.

The same can be said of Ronan Donovan. These two boys will surely give the Ballyduff defence a torrid time along with county man James O’Connor.

At the back, they have a great goalie in Brian Donovan whose shot stopping ability is matched by his puck out management.

Kieran Dineen will surely anchor the centre back position this year.

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Ballyduff, for their part, will come into this game with some worries as the numbers available to the panel has dwindled over the past year or two, as they try to bridge the gap between a few lean years underage and the senior team.

The retirement of Padraig and David Grady and injury to one of Kerry’s greatest sports men, Liam Boyle, has also hampered them this year.

Ballyduff will also be without the dynamic Jack Goulding and hard-working Daniel Carroll for the opening round at least.

Jack Sullivan is a great prospect and the return of Ally O’Connor will bolster their challenge.

The influence of the holy trinity comprising of Michael Boyle, Padraigh Boyle and Paud Costello will certainly be needed to get Ballyduff over the challenge of Abbeydorney.

They say in drama and theatre that a poor dress rehearsal usually culminates in an opening night success. Well if the game against Lixnaw last week was a dress rehearsal, well then Ballyduff will certainly look forward to a win over Abbeydorney — the display against Lixnaw was pretty poor.

You will hear all the pundits say that when it comes to championship and “inside in town” Ballyduff is a different animal.

I’m not so sure about that this weekend, but don’t rule out seeing the green and white in the latter stages of the competition.