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Last week I wrote about the remarkable record and tradition that Éire Óg have established in both the Carlow championship and at Leinster and All Ireland level. Well on Sunday last, they began yet another club championship campaign in familiar fashion. An opening round win against Wicklow’s Kiltegan was the first step on what will hopefully be a long road. While the final victory margin was only four points, in truth it was a much more comfortable victory than this might suggest. A very strong first quarter set the foundation for this victory with one of Éire Óg's bigger names to the fore in this period. Simon Rae was back to his sparkling best in this opening quarter and was heavily involved in the opening up of a 1-4 to no score lead in the opening quarter. Indeed when Mark Kelly got the vital touch to a speculative Ber Hennessy ball for the first of his two goals, it looked ominous for the Wicklow champions. To their credit however, they fought their way back into the game and they scored the next four points to leave just a goal separating the sides. Éire Óg weathered this storm well with a pivotal moment being a great save by Michael Hennessy which prevented the Wicklow men drawing level. From this point, the Carlow champions demonstrated their ruthlessness and big game know-how by engineering the second goal of the game in first half injury time when Mark Kelly doubled his own goal tally for the day by finishing a full length move to the corner of the net. This gave them the cushion they needed and despite Kiltegan's best efforts, the margin never dipped below four points. Rae was again influential in the second half, scoring two fine points himself and setting Eric McCormick up for his side’s ultimately decisive, third goal. This was a good performance from the Carlow champions given that they had only won their own championship the previous Sunday. It's never easy to begin another campaign so soon after winning your own championship, but if there is one club capable of doing it it's Éire Óg.

The John McIntyre era commences at O'Connor Park on Sunday when Galway make the short trip to Tullamore for a Walsh Cup clash with Offaly.