Easkey preparing for their epic final date in Croke Park
ON Saturday week, February 9th, Easkey GAA will be making history as the first ever club from Sligo to play in an All-Ireland final in Croke Park.
After their emphatic win over Donegal’s Red Hughs in the All-Ireland Junior Club Championship semi final in Ballinamore, Easkey are into the coveted final where they face Beaufort from Kerry in Croke Park (throw-in 3pm).
The count-down is getting closer by the hour and Sloyan’s men are busy preparing for their much-anticipated final.
After overcoming a dogged Red Hughs in the semi final, Easkey now are facing the Munster champions from Kerry.
The west Sligo side have already put themselves in the history books of Sligo GAA and are hoping to go one further and win the final on the day.
The side includes plenty of young players with the average age of 23 but there is experience in abundance too with the likes of captain Eugene Mullen and the Connacht championship winning captain of Sligo, Noel McGuire.
McGuire has played in Croke Park many times with the Yeats County but now he will be walking out onto the hallowed turf this time with his club.
The Sea Blues man explained he last played there in the Division 3 final in 2010, which is almost a decade ago.
In terms of focusing on the upcoming final, the defender said the side are busy preparing for the crunch game.
“I think we have got our heads around it. We haven’t really talked that much about it.
“We had a light session on Tuesday night (after the semi final) and Friday was our first proper get together since the weekend so basically what we have been talking about is the bigger pitch and the surface and stuff like that.
“We haven’t really spoken about it as Croke Park, basically it is just about the field itself and what we are going to be faced with you know when it comes to the playing of the game,” he added.
McGuire continued in terms of the team keeping level headed: “There is going to be talk around the parish and around the county I suppose and that is natural enough but I think you can look at it two ways, you can look forward to it and buy into the fact that you are going to Croke Park but you also have to look forward to it too. This is something that players dream about doing but at the end of the day, it is another game of football and whatever number of games you have played all year.
“I think the fellas are grounded and you can see it already there the focus in the training and the minds are on the job at hand very much so,” McGuire pointed out.
In terms of their opponents Beaufort, the defender said that not too much is known about them. “I don’t know an awful lot about them but I know the management team have done a little bit of work over the last couple of days so there is some videos and stuff from their previous games there that the players would be looking at and going over the weekend and that. But look it, the record the Kerry teams have in this junior competition and intermediate and senior as well is second to none.
“There are clubs in Kerry preparing for this weekend every year so they are going to be well prepared and they are going to be a big challenge for us,” he added.
He said that the team really got the belief that this year could be special for them when Sloyan took over.
“I think when Dessie got involved and got his backroom team organised it was fairly evident that there was a good set-up there and I think the players bought into it very quickly so we were back training this time last year we probably had a couple of weeks’ work done. So we are technically maybe into 53 or 54 weeks of training. Everyone bought into it but we took one game at a time. We had a fairly good league and we finished 3rd and we were close enough to getting promoted and we were building nicely all year for Championship and I think we have improved as the year has gone on.”
McGuire who was also player/manager of the Sea Blues in 2013-’15 added: “I am back just as a regular joe soap player now! In a way it is great because you don’t have to think of as much stuff as you have to when you are manager. Basically I can just focus and come and do my training and try to prepare myself as best as I can be whereas when you’re managing them you’re thinking of everyone else and the organisation side of it has an awful lot of work in it. It has freed me up to concentrate on playing which is great,” McGuire said.
In terms of the team, he said there is a good blend there of players. “It is kind of unique really in the break-down of the age profile of the team. The average age of the team is probably 22 or 23 maybe even a bit less but then you have fellas like myself and Eugene, I am forty, Eugene is 38, Brendan McGrath is 38 you know so we have the other end of the spectrum as well. It was the mid nineties when I started out and it is great to be playing with these young fellas there is a great freshness, they are so enthusiastic and they inspire me to keep going and I am sure they probably look at me and say it is great to have a fella like him still around as well.”
McGuire said it is hard to compare what is happening now with his club and his success at county level with Sligo.
“I was listening to an interview with Donncha O’Callaghan during the week and he was asked about comparing the Heineken Cup win with winning a Grand Slam and he said look they are impossible to compare, they are two different groups of players and obviously both very special achievements. You do get kind of reminded of that whole atmosphere back 12 years ago now we are in a similar sort of situation with the club but you don’t really compare them for a like for like basis, only that they are both unique in their own way and it is great to be still involved at my age in such a big game,” he added.