Gallagher: I never thought we’d be back

By Fintan O’Toole

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

FOUR years on and St Gall’s midfielder Aodhán Gallagher still finds himself brooding over his last St Patrick’s Day visit to Croke Park.

The Antrim club arrived for their inaugural national football decider in high spirits after a splendid semi-final victory over Nemo Rangers, but in arctic conditions at GAA headquarters, their dreams of final success were destroyed by Galway side Salthill-Knocknacarra.

Gallagher grimaces at the memory. He recalls: "The cold was one of the most abiding memories. Regret and the overriding feeling that we had left it behind were the other things. We didn’t perform. When you don’t perform and you’re only beaten by a point, it gives you a bit of hope, but it doesn’t make you feel any better about the performance. I think there was so much hype after the Nemo game because it was such a good performance and maybe some of the hype got to the boys heads."

Gallagher did not believe St Gall’s would ever reach such heady heights again.

"John Rafferty said after the game that we were good enough to get back, but when you think of the teams you have to beat to get there — it’s such a hard task. Realistically, I didn’t think we would ever be back."

But St Gall’s have defied their midfielder’s forecast and square off against Kilmurry-Ibrickane in this afternoon’s AIB All-Ireland Club SFC final as favourites.

Gallagher pinpoints the experience gained from past matches as the key advantage St Gall’s now possess. Their semi-final against Corofin was a dramatic ride punctuated by sending-offs, wayward shooting and extra-time before they claimed victory. Interestingly Gallagher believes that the St Gall’s team of four years ago would not have won a game in similar circumstances, as they turned to face Corofin with 14 men for the second-half.

"If that had happened, I don’t think we would have come out of it.

"There is a lot more maturity in the team now. Most of the senior members of the squad were young players then. They were the likes of myself, Terry (O’Neill) and Kell (Sean Kelly).

"We were still at university. We were quite naive in some of the decisions that we were making. A lot of the defeats that we have had in the last four years have taught us well. I think that all came out in Parnell that night."

The Corofin display was not without its faults though and Gallagher is steadfast in his belief that improvement will be necessary to defeat Kilmurry-Ibrickane.

"We kicked maybe eight wides and landed three or four into the goalkeeper’s hands. We can see a big room for improvement. The boys realise that our performance against Corofin was not good enough to win an All-Ireland and that we were lucky to get out of Parnell Park with a victory."

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Wednesday, March 17, 2010