The Championship season enters its final run of five matches and both of these team's plans look to be focused more on the bottom of the table than the top. Cork County are the safer of the pair, in 5th place but only 30 points ahead of North Kildare in bottom. A couple more wins over the last few weeks should be enough to ensure safety, and where better to start than a home win against the bottom side. The fate of the bottom teams in the championship rests very much on whether 1st teams or 2nd teams do well in Division 4. At the moment, that league is being led by Balbriggan 2 and The Hills 2 (good news for North Kildare) but everything could change. North Kildare will need to win at least three of their remaining games to move themselves to safety. North Kildare's two previous trips to the Mardyke in Senior matches (2016 and 2022) have both ended in defeat. In the 2016 Championship match, Steph Grobler took 3-10 to help bowl North Kildare out for 82, before he hit 52* to seal the nine wicket win in 12.4 overs.