SEA BLUES DREAMIN
FINAL fever has been gripping Easkey and the county of Sligo for weeks now as the Sea Blues head to Croke Park on Saturday for their All-Ireland Junior Club Championship.
The west Sligo side are taking on Kerry’s Beaufort in a first for the county as Dessie Sloyan’s men become the first club to reach a final in Croke Park.
They marched their way through Connacht and then had a semi final encounter with Red Hughs, a physical Donegal and Ulster outfit but victory was the Sligo club’s on the day as they now prepare for a momentous occasion this Saturday.
Sloyan’s side are youthful with the average age of the team 22 or 23 but they are bolstered by much experience too, with captain Eugene Mullen, Connacht winning captain Noel McGuire and Brendan McGrath among their more seasoned leaders on the pitch.
It is a tremendous achievement for the west Sligo club and its large bunch of loyal supporters and what it meant to reach the coveted final could be seen as the Easkey fans flocked onto the Ballinamore pitch following their semi final victory.
Dessie Sloyan admits the whole parish is ‘walking on air’ ahead of their All-Ireland Junior final in Croke Park on Saturday with Beaufort of Kerry.
The former county star said everyone is on a high in Easkey and it really has brought the small close knit community together.
With his son Dylan also on the team it really is football fever this week in the Sloyan household and the whole of the west Sligo parish.
Sloyan said: “Finally the week is here and we are all good and really looking forward to it.
“It is great for the whole area and the whole buzz and excitement has really taken off in the last 10 days or so. It has been crazy but it is brilliant it is great experience for everyone involved as none of us have experienced anything like this before,” the manager added.
He continued: “It is wonderful too seeing the schools and kids all involved in the build-up and everyone young and old is really looking forward to it. We are very proud the way the whole parish is getting behind us and the local businesses too, everyone is rowing in at this stage.”
“The fans too will be flocking to Croke Park not only from west Sligo and the Yeats County but every corner of the globe.
“It is fantastic, there are people coming from Boston, Seattle, Australia, Germany, England, all over. It is bringing people together and everyone is looking forward to it which is a great thing.”
Going back to the start of the season Sloyan admitted reaching Croke Park was not really on their minds as they took every game as it came and the focus was on preparing on each game.
“With the Connacht games then, they all came so quick and then in the semi-final our focus really was on Red Hughs as we knew we had to play well against them. We didn’t think much about the final before that but it was such relief, everyone I suppose had it in the back of their minds and to win that game was fantastic.”
In terms of Beaufort, he said being Munster champions puts them as favourites. “They are in Division 1 and the Munster champions from Cork and Kerry are hot favourites. They are a very strong team and it will be a great test but it is a 2 horse race at the end of the day. If we play well we will see what happens. That is our main focus.”
Being a former player and now manager, Sloyan said he is incredibly proud of what this Easkey team has achieved. “It is brilliant you can only imagine with an inter-county team getting to an All-Ireland final and here we are for such a small parish in the club final. Everyone has worked so hard and I am so, so proud of them.
“It is really fantastic and brilliant for the club. I think it will not be until the whole thing settles down that we realise what we did,” he added.
Saturday they take on the Kerry and Munster winners and captain Eugene Mullen said it is an occasion everyone is really looking forward to.
“This is something new for us all. I suppose we never have experienced this before and trying to get that focus back again you know that it is only a game of football, an hour, like it can go anyway if you get your head right but trying to get the focus after such a great win the last day was the big thing. We are ready to go again now.
“As captain, it is a childhood dream to not just to play football with your club but to be the captain of a team that gets to play in Croke Park, not too many people get to experience that,” he explained.
As captain, Mullen will be giving his team a few words before the game and he said he has not really thought too much about what he is going to say just yet.
“You try to think about it maybe a few days before the game, it depends on the mood in the dressing room as well, it depends how everyone is going and you can get a sense of things in the warm-up or whatever.
“And from then you can kind of cheer lads up or calm them down depending on what they need.
“You know different lads need different things said to them before a game so you just try and see what the mood is really.”