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Decided to make this to hear facts and opinions based on our 8 clubs competing in the intermediate grade this year.
Ballylinan
Portlaoise (II)
Mountmellick
Annanough
Timahoe
Kilcavan
Park Ratheniska
Arles Kilcruise

The north side of the county saw great success last night with the wins from kilcavan and an unexpected thumping of Ballylinan by Mountmellick.

After Park Ratheniska's easy enough win over Annanough last night, it's hard to see that either Crettyard or Park/Ratheniska won't win this.
Mountmellick could drag themselves back into it I suppose but they have their work cut out to beat Portlaoise's second team.
Arles or Timahoe don't appear to be strong enough.

Mountmellick and Portlaoise game tonight will be interesting gauge of where both teams are at . Mountmellick team will be interesting to see given against Annanough , they seemed to be missing a lot of the players who featured in last years semi final defeat to a full strength Ballylinan.
Portlaoise however being a second team could spring a surprise. They could  have a different team/setup to the one that played against crettyard so it is a tough one to judge for tonight .
Speaking of Crettyard , anyone at the game ?
What was the primary difference between them beating Portlaoise by 2 goals and hammering kilcruise by 20 points or so .
Theoretically Portlaoise 2nd team aren't a 14 point better team then Arles on paper. Although Evan kicking 2-8 could be just that difference.
Interesting to find out how this all plays out .

Intermediate Championship seems as wide open as ever this year . Real feeling that a lot of teams can win it .
Mountmellick lost to Annanough the other night and deservedly so. Paul Lawlor doing great job there by the looks of it they played well structured defensively and caught Mountmellick on the break . However I hear Mountmellick have 3-4 lads from last years starting team away or injured which never helps. I wouldn't write them off yet .

Didn't manage to see other fixtures but Park ratheniska got first win as expected and Crettyard won too although maybe not as convincingly as people thought . Evan o Carroll huge loss for them .
Kilcruise winning too shows it's any teams year this year .
Next set of fixtures all very tasty as Portlaoise second team will definitely give a Mountmellick a right game and Annanough likewise could definitely get one over on Park Ratheniska .
Kilcruise and Crettyard set up to be a cracker of a fixture too .
We'll have to wait and see .

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