Burke has a dream to fulfil before setting sail
KILMACANOGUE’S Gavan Burke is soon to set sail for Vancouver but not before he tries to fulfil his dream of winning an Intermediate football medal with his beloved side when they try to take that last step this Sunday against Dunlavin.
It’s an amazing place for this proud club to find themselves in – on the cusp of Senior football, but it can’t be a massive surprise to anyone given the work that has been put in at juvenile level and the progress made under Jonathan Daniels and now Mark King and his management team.
Things looked bleak about a decade ago when they fell to a heavy defeat to Knockananna in a championship match in Avondale with a panel of 16 and a lean future by the looks of things to the outside world. But help was soon to arrive as Gavan explains.
‘There were a few years after that where a core group of players came through. They were around my age, about eight or nine players came through, all brilliant footballers, and it almost redefined the team.
There was a stage I remember where we were struggling with Junior ‘A’ football and then in successive years we won the Junior A league, the Intermediate league and we were back up to Senior and I think it’s a team like this, we’ve just grown so much together and we’re a very close team, there’s no negativity in the team and we just drive each other on, that’s really helped, just being such a tight-knit group.
‘There’s a real community feel to the team, everyone is looking out for each other. We’re a nice bunch of lads, everyone wants the best for each other. Nobody is out here for themselves, it’s team effort,’ said Gavan.
The championship campaign has been one of mainly positives for Kilmacanogue aside from some games being closer than Gavan and his colleagues might have liked.
‘It’s been mainly ups. Our league went terrible, the morale was a little bit down and nobody knew how this was going to go. We won our first league match against Annacurra which was a huge match and that kind of lifted everyone’s spirits and ever since then we’ve just driven on. There’s been no match where it looked like we would lose but there were a few matches that were a bit tighter than we would have liked.
‘I think we’ve done the job every game, we’ve gone out with our gameplan, we’ve implemented it, there’s been no major issues as of yet,’ he said.
Kilmacanogue are blessed with some serious footballers, the O’Callaghan’s, Tob Conan, Niall Meldon, Cian Rafferty, Burke himself and of course Simon Doyle.
‘He’s savage,’ said Gavan. ‘He’s a complete footballer, can kick off both feet, has fitness, great in the air, well able to carry a ball, able to pick out a pass, it’s great to play with him. You’d need someone to double up on him but the thing with doing that is that we have 14 other footballers so that just leaves another footballer free,’ he added.
There could be warm handshakes with Dunlavin manager Jonathan Daniels ahead of this game from the Kilmac players given the bond they all enjoyed during the Blessington native’s time under the Sugarloaf but as Gavan rightly points out, a lot of time has passed since he was in charge and he won’t know exactly what to expect some Sunday.
‘I’ve a lot of respect for him. I got on great with him when he was at the club, everyone respected him. To be honest this is the match I was hoping for. I wanted to face ‘Booy’ in the final, just to have that Kilmac/ Dunlavin connection. I know he knows us but it’s been a good few years since he’s been with us so a lot of things will have changed since then. I’m looking forward to the challenge, looking forward to seeing him again. He gets teams to play brilliant footballer. You can see Dunlavin have been outstanding in the championship so it’s going to be a really good football match.
‘Only respect, no hard feelings. We don’t mind that he left after the three years, it was time to move on for him. I’m just happy to play him.
Gavan Burke expects a fast and furious football game on Sunday.
‘Expecting running, expecting good football, I expect that they won’t line out as we expect, ‘Booy’ has a habit of doing that. I’m not expecting a dirty match, I’m just expecting a good football match, hard hitting like all county finals should be.
‘I’ve always seen them as very similar to our style of football,’ he said.
Delivering their pre-match and half-time speeches will be their clubman Mark King who should need no introduction to any football supporters in Wicklow. Gavan Burke said having an inside man has been brilliant.
‘It’s brilliant to get someone local in who really knows the club. He brings passion. Having external matches is great but they’re not from the village, they don’t have that village feel. He’s really driven us on. We never expected to get to an Intermediate semi-final last year, let alone a final this year but he’s brought out the best from us.
‘We’ve had a few new tactics this year that have worked very well. The training has been savage. There have been days when you’re dying, you don’t want to train anymore but you need it. But we’ve changed our training as well, when we didn’t need to train as hard, we didn’t. He’s just got good footballing knowledge. He’s doing a lot of training himself, so he’s been putting a lot of time into developing new techniques and he’s been using them with us,’ he added.
And so what a way to depart Ireland it would be if Gavan was to have helped his side to the Intermediate title ahead of his departure. It would be bittersweet, however, as his dream also included playing Senior football, but he’s going to take it one step at a time and get through Sunday first.
‘It’s going to be extremely busy. If I could go away to Vancouver with the championship medal it would mean the world to me. That’s why I’ve put off the move for so long. If we had any chance of winning this championship, I wanted to be here for the final year. I’ve wanted to play Senior championship since I was a young lad, so in a way it would be bittersweet, because this is what I stayed for but then I’ll be missing out because I’m moving away, unless they don’t mind flying me back for championship,’ he said.