‘Genie’ Donnelly confident new project can fulfil all of his wishes
EUGENE Donnelly is back but he warns not to expect anything like the fireworks of the past. Not yet anyway.
The record-equalling five-time Irish Tarmac champion, known as ‘The Genie’, makes his return to the series in this weekend’s West Cork Rally with an exciting new project involving Hyundai and Indian tyre manufacturer MRF. But he stresses it is early days and he sees the opening round of the 2018 championship as “purely a test run”.
“I may have won 18 Tarmac rounds and a load of championships but that was a while ago and this is a bit of a step into the unknown,” he says. “But I’m excited about it.
“To bring in a company like Hyundai and a new tyre supplier has to be good for the championship but it will take time to get up to speed. I don’t expect to be challenging the likes of Sam and Josh Moffett or Robert Barrable any time soon.
“But everything has been encouraging so far. We got the R5 Hyundai i20 a couple of weeks ago and had a brief shakedown run in Donegal before a more extensive test in the Sperrins on Tuesday. It was all positive.”
It is almost three years since Donnelly appeared on a Tarmac round and in between he suffered injuries, co-driving for his friend Paul Kiely, when they crashed on the 2016 Sligo Rally.
Now fully recovered, the Maghera driver has lost none of his enthusiasm or commitment.
He takes his place at No.8 In Clonakilty this morning in a lineup that is headed by the WRC Ford Focus of four-time winner Donagh Kelly and which will see NI champion Jonny Greer switch to a Ford Fiesta after parts failed to arrive in time to complete his new Citroen DS3.
THIS time last year, Slaughtneil camogie player Eilis Ni Chaiside was preparing for the biggest game of her life — an All-Ireland final against Sarsfields of Galway — but her personal preparations were below par.
The reason behind that was the loss of her father, Thomas, some months before. As the main man in the revival of hurling and camogie in the club, his shadow cast long over the build-up.
Reminders were everywhere. Even their joint-manager, Antrim’s hurling boss Dominic ‘Woody’ McKinley, was an old friend of Thomas’ and got involved with the club camogs on his request.
“Even the week before the match, I was really, really feeling it due to the fact he wasn’t there and the amount of work and effort he put in, but I think that is a reflection of the work that went before that,” the school teacher in Dungiven’s Gaelscoil Neachtain explains.
“I don’t know why but I felt really weak in the lead-up to the match but the day of the match, I was fine. I felt really strong.”
Strong enough to put in a big performance as they edged out a narrow tussle and became the first club from Derry, and only the second in Ulster after Antrim’s O’Donovan Rossa, to land a senior All-Ireland Club title.
Yet there wouldn’t have been a camogie team to represent the club if it hadn’t been for her dad Thomas’ efforts in reviving the small ball codes. And Eilis achieved an All-Ireland with sisters, team captain Aoife and Brona, while brothers Sean and Eanna have been prominent hurlers in the club in their meteoric recent rise.
“I know all my life, we would have been encouraged to play hurling as well, because he would have been the manager,” was her reflection on how she started playing camogie.
“There are a lot of the players that would have played under him in one way or another, so he would have been heavily involved.”
That journey comes into sharp focus on weeks like these, when the prospect of playing for it all in Croke Park beckons as they meet Sarsfields for the second consecutive club final tomorrow.
The wing-forward said: “You go out to play at the highest level and you win a County Championship and last year, going on to win Ulster, which was a massive win.
“We would have been beaten before in finals and we just couldn’t get over that line of the Ulster final. We went on to win the All-Ireland and it was the Holy Grail really. It’s something you dream of but never actually think you will actually get there.”
The dream began in the back garden. Growing up, the Ni Chaisides needed plenty of room for their seven children and so their lawn became a mini-hurling field.
Mother Anne Marie had been a player of some renown in her youth for Slaughtneil and taught the basics to her children.
The game of camogie has been steadily gaining mainstream respect over the last few years. This week, the ever-pop-