HIGH emotion may always be associated with major occasions in sport but rarely will they have been as raw as those at play when Kilmallie meet Newtonmore in shinty’s MacTavish Cup final today.

The very presence of the men of Kilmallie at the Bught Park in Inverness, in particular that of one team member Michael Rodger, represents a triumph of their spirit after what has been a hideous turn of events for the club.

Matters had already taken a sad turn ahead of their Camanachd Cup second round match when news came through that Donald Lamont, one of the club’s heroes of a bygone era, had died. However, the weekend was to bring tragedy of a different order with the subsequent death of a member of the current team, Michael’s cousin Duncan, who had put in an exceptional performance to help his team win that match 5-3.

“It has been a dreadful fortnight,” admitted Alastair MacIntyre, Kilmallie’s chairman. “Donald had died on the Saturday morning, which was a sad loss for the club, but it was probably Duncan Rodger’s best game for us, scoring two beautiful goals and then we wake up on Monday to the news of his death.

“The boys were shattered, just in bits, so we held a players’ meeting and if the majority had been unwilling to play then we would have withdrawn from this final, but it was unanimously agreed that we would play.”

In the programme notes for today’s match MacIntyre thanks the wider shinty community for the kindness and condolences directed towards them in the days that followed and he noted that the game’s governing body had also made a significant gesture of solidarity, with the cancellation of all last weekend’s matches involving Kilmallie and Fort William, for whom Duncan Rodger had been a key figure during their golden era, playing in five Camanachd Cup successes.

“The Camanachd Association had also very kindly offered us the opportunity to cancel this match if we had chosen to and, having worked for the Association myself for 17 years, I know it would not have been the easiest thing to postpone a televised game,” he noted.

Currently ninth in the 10-team Marine Harvest Premiership with just a solitary league win in nine matches this season, Kilmallie would always have gone into this final as underdogs against the Marine Harvest Premiership champions of the past six years and, in this instance, the taking part will represent a major achievement in itself. However, their chairman’s hope is that they will find inspiration from all that has happened, not least because of the influence Duncan Rodger – whose No.12 will be worn by cousin Michael today – had brought to bear in a relatively short time at the club.

“There’s always going to be a bit of a reaction,” MacIntyre observed. “They’ve got special shirts made up for the warm-up acknowledging that Duncan and Donald are with us. We’ve got a lot of young players in our squad and Duncan had been very, very good with them since he joined us 18 months ago, so we’re going to miss him terribly, but I’m hoping they’ll get over that very quickly and I’m sure they will.

“It could go the other way, too and they could play brilliantly. We’ve got two of the most promising youngsters in the sport in Innes Blackhall and Calum MacDougall, so if they play well they can be a real handful. Newtonmore are by far the favourites but if our boys click then they have a chance.”

Kilmallie’s prospects are further hampered by the absence of wing back Stephen McAllister, red carded during that Camanachd Cup defeat of Lochaber and consequently handed an automatic two match ban. However they produced an upset in the MacTavish Cup semi-final by beating a Kinlochshiel side that had a 100 per cent record in league matches and there is a feeling within the sport that Newtonmore are slightly more vulnerable than at any time in the recent past.

Whereas only two members of the 17 man Kilmallie squad are over the age of 31 and five of them are teenagers, there is a veteran look to the Newtonmore squad which favours them significantly in terms of the vast advantage they boast in terms of big match experience, but has also generated some speculation that they are reaching a stage where they can be out-run by younger opponents.

That impression has been fed in recent weeks by an uncharacteristically shaky start to their pursuit of a seventh successive league title that has seen them fall six points behind unbeaten Kyles Athletic.

They have also been forced to call on 38-year-old Norman Campbell, the former international captain, to play in goal for them in the injury enforced absence of regular goal-keeper Owen Fraser, but again his knowhow should prevent any lack of familiarity with the role from being too much of a problem.