Code Crackers

For the once hurling-centric Éire Óg club, Sunday’s football finals – and the appearance of Daniel Goulding, Ciaran Sheehan and exciting minor Kevin Hallissey – offer a global platform to the strides the club has made with the big ball. Fintan O’Toole visited the Ovens-based club

JIM O’NEILl traces the origins back to 1998. That year he was over the Éire Óg U14 football side and along with Leo Lowney and Mick Landers steered them to the final of the Féile competition in Cork. The prize was a spot in the national Féile competition, the annual festival of underage football, and it was grasped in an atmosphere of high excitement.

A last-gasp Donal O’Flynn goal in the decider in Páirc Uí Rinn that April snatched victory from Carrigaline. The Féile that July was held in Donegal and O’Neill led a squad and management team filled with enthusiasm towards their base in Glenties. Kildare’s Moorefield ousted them in the semi-final, but O’Neill recognises those times as seminal.