Underdogs St Mary’s have sights fixed on a further final fling
JUST as they did two years ago in winning the competition outright, St Mary’s University College have to date proved the surprise packet in the Sigerson Cup.
Rated as underdogs in the two matches they have played so far, against Maynooth University and IT Tralee, St Mary’s have made a mockery of the formbook to blast their way into today’s semi-final meeting with holders UCD at Mallow.
Yet for all their courage and character to date, this could prove a defining tie for the west Belfast seat of learning.
UCD, taking their inspiration from Dublin All-Ireland winner Con O’Callaghan, have looked comfortable in reaching the last four and will certainly test St Mary’s to the full.
The Ulster side, though, is not short on talent with Jarlath Og Burns, Shane McGuigan, Ryan Coleman, Liam Devlin and Niall Toner set to prop up their challenge.
Burns is proving a chip off the old block at midfield — his father is former Armagh skipper Jarlath Burns Snr — while Coleman and Toner are quality forwards who can both fashion and take scores.
Coach Gavin McGilly has watched the side blossom but concedes they will be up against it today.
Meanwhile, Cavan manager Mickey Graham faces one of the biggest challenges of his career when the Mullinalagh- ta side which he has guided to three successive Longford senior football titles takes on Kerry and Munster champions Dr Crokes in today’s All-Ireland Senior Club Championship semi-final.
Mullinalaghta hit the high spots in conquering fancied Kilmacud Crokes in the Leinster decider while Dr Crokes eased to a nine-point victory over St Joseph’s, Miltown Malbay to lift the Munster crown after wrapping up a seventh county final in nine years.
The Kerry side carry the favourites label into today’s contest but this does not deter Graham from believing his side can land a fairytale success.
“We will be giving everything,” he maintains.
“This is where we want to be. As the team has progressed, the lads have gained in self-belief and now they are ready to do themselves proud.”
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ASPEECH with a line such as, ‘My heart is lifted to heavenly heights’ is always going to leave an impression. When it comes from an All-Ireland-winning captain, and delivered entirely in Irish, then it transcends a passing nod to the language.
In accepting Sam Maguire in 2004, Kerry captain Dara Ó Cinneide set in train a set of circumstances that led to today and the Leitrim town of Carrick-on-Shannon — which pauses from its reinvention as a latter-day Mecca for stag and hen dos — playing host to the All-Ireland Club semi-final as Gaoth Dobhair gear up for their biggest ever day in taking on defending champions Corofin.
After making that speech 15 years ago, a communication came down the line from a fellow Gaeilgeoir, 300 miles to the north.
Donnchadh MacNiallais, a PE teacher who had played for Gaoth Dobhair in the 1977 Donegal county final, wanted to acknowledge Ó Cinneide for his speech. After some back and forth, he found himself with a coach-load of under-age players heading to Kerry to pay a visit to Ó Cinneide’s An Ghaeltacht club for a friendly game.
“We beat them handily enough, and we wouldn’t have been that good. They said, ‘We should be better than what we are’,” recalled Ó Cinneide.
They sat down and talked. Gaoth Dobhair could sense some fallow years were coming for the club and they needed to know if their five-year plan, drawn up by the likes of Brendan Boyle — father of county player and hat-trick destroyer of Crossmaglen, Dáire — Kevin Cassidy and Tom Beag Gillespie among others was fit for purpose.
“The next thing they were back to me asking if I would become some kind of an ambassador. They said, ‘We want somebody outside of Donegal with the Gaeilge’,” explained Ó Cinneide.
He’s keen to play down his role, which amounted to three or four weekends every 12 months, for four years. He would go up on a Friday and train various under-age sides but, as far as he could see, they already had it covered with Gillespie a particularly impressive but humble individual.
“I would come in and give a talk and say, ‘This is what we do in Kerry’, and they might say, ‘That’s kind of primitive’, so I told them they were on the right track already, they just needed to hear it from somebody else,” he laughed.
“But it was Tom Beag who was the revelation there. I remember thinking, ‘This is an amazing guy’.
“He was all about the skills and even from his point of view, his curiosity. He made you feel you were the one with all the answers.”
No more so than his own community, Gaoth Dobhair had an ongoing identity struggle.
Some traditions were set in stone from previous generations, but when you are struggling to win things, then everything is questioned. The atheists and agnostics were still getting down on their knees to say the Rosary in Irish before each game, but the worth of it must have been pondered.
“They wanted to hold onto some of their elements of their traditions and wanted the likes