Top flight has given us a greater edge, says Damien Comer
DAMIEN COMER was only four years old at the time, but he remembers his first trip to Croke Park with his parents. It was AllIreland club final day in 1998 when Ray Silke lifted the Andy Merrigan Cup for Corofin and brought it back across the Shannon. It was the catalyst for even greater days for Galway football.
But Comer says that isn’t his first memory of going to a Gaelic football match. He was even younger when he saw his late father John play as goalkeeper for Glenamaddy in Tuam Stadium.
‘I vaguely remember climbing through the fence in Tuam Stadium when my Dad was playing,’ the talented full-forward recalls. ‘I think it was a championship game and he was playing in goals, I had just turned four at the time.’
His whole childhood was spent following Galway footballers and hurlers to Croke Park. ‘My first ever visit to Croker was for Corofin in 1998. But there were a good few hurling trips because Galway were in All-Ireland finals. And the footballers, too. My parents always had a big interest and that’s probably where my interest came from too.’
As a toddler, Comer even tried to get in on the action when his father was playing for Glenamaddy. ‘He played up until 1998 and I have been told that I once ran onto the pitch when he was playing. He was centreback, then full-back and later moved back to goal. He never did play for Galway but he was a Glenamaddy man through and through even when I was playing for Annaghdown.’
When Comer was a young boy, Croke Park held no fears for Galway footballers. It was the playground of Pádraic Joyce and Michael Donnellan. But this generation has never won a Championship match at headquarters – indeed, Galway haven’t won a Championship match there since beating Meath in the 2001 All-Ireland final. It is a grim statistic that always rears its head when the Tribesmen have to travel back up the Jones Road, but the Galway skipper shrugs when it’s mentioned.
‘It doesn’t bother me to be honest though it is thrown out by the media all the time. It’s a record that stands more so for players who have come and gone rather than the new bunch of players. We have got four debutants on the team this year who have never played in Croke Park other than in the League final. If it was played in MacHale Park, Pearse Stadium or down in Tralee I don’t think it would matter – it is just a pitch,’ he said.
Last year’s quarter-final defeat to Kerry summed up all of Galway’s recent travails at headquarters. They spurned a number of good goalscoring opportunities and ended up, collapsing when the Kingdom put the squeeze on. Having wiped Donegal from the field in the previous game, there was a lot of optimism in the west. But that evaporated long before the final whistle.
‘It was a hard one to take because we had the chances. I think we had four goal chances in that game,’ Comer remembers. ‘It could have been a different story. Even all through the game we just didn’t perform as we would have liked especially after the Donegal game.
‘It was frustrating. We felt if we had played we could have taken them out but it’s easy to say that now. On the day we have to go out and perform and there are no questions about it afterwards. You either do it when you can or don’t do it at all.’
The affable and engaging Comer has the gift of the gab, something that serves him well as he works as a barman in the busy Taaffes on Galway’s Shop Street for the summer. In his fifth year on the panel, he feels Galway have made incremental progress every year. But he believes the biggest leap has been made this year because of their Allianz League top-flight status.
‘Division 1 has helped us big-time. We have built consistent performances and going out playing with the intensity that you need. It definitely has stood to us and given the young lads the experience of playing the bigger teams. There is a fair difference between Division 1 and 2 but it is tough going in Division 2 as well as we found out ourselves because we had problems getting out of it. There is a step up in quality and it’s much faster, but we have certainly benefited from it this year.
‘And it has helped us with the physical aspect of the game. We had to up the intensity with every game. There were probably times in the past when Galway got bullied by other teams, but we have learnt that we have got to stick up for ourselves, too.’ For years, the aristocratic nature of Galway football ensured that teams were almost obliged to play a nice brand of football. Now with a skilful batteringram like Comer leading their attack, the Tribesmen have shown that they have moved with the times. Today may not be the only time that Damien Comer will lead the Connacht champions out onto Croke Park this summer.