Causeway will have to be at their best to overcome Lixnaw in the Garveys Supervalu Kerry SHC first round game on Sunday says Mike O’Halloran…

Causeway and Lixnaw play the twilight game on Sunday in Lerrig, Causeway have come off a win in the 2015 County League where they defeated St Brendan’s by three points two weeks ago and are returning to Lerrig where they played their best hurling in one game last year.

At the launch of the Garveys SuperValu Hurling championship a few weeks ago most of the players who attended tipped Causeway to win the championship outright.

For the past number of years people have said “if Causeway could win one Championship they could win three or four in a row”.

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Causeway have threatened to do great things over the past few years with some great performances in some games but were unable to continue their progression to the trophy bearing the name of one of their most famous club men.

Causeway have a whole host of players that have graced the inter county and colleges hurling scene but some how they have not been able to reach the Holy Grail.

They can call on the likes of Kerry stars Keith Carmody, Bryan Murphy, Thomas Casey and of course Colum Harty even though there is a doubt about his fitness as he retired injured in the final versus St Brendan’s, there are reports that up to five Causeway players are on the injured list for the game. There is also a doubt about the availability of the impressive dual star Brandon Barrett.

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Causeway will need everybody fit and ready for the challenge posed by the powerful machine that is Lixnaw.

I saw Lixnaw playing Ballyduff recently and they looked really sharp even without Colin Sheehy and Shane Conway.

Stephen Power’s men will present a huge challenge to Causeway with the power they have at the back the reliability of Martin Stackpoole between the posts and the lethal forwards like Sheehy, the two Conway’s and James Flaherty.

Lixnaw have had huge success at underage in the past few years and can call on other young guns with loads of big match experience, the likes of Brendan Brosnan and John Buckley..

Expect Causeway to bring everything they have on the night and they get all the breaks. I don’t think they will have enough for Lixnaw.