McDonagh a graduate with Croker credentials

LAST Wednesday, Anne Marie McDonagh woke up in her dorm in St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, walked past the classroom where her first college lecture was due to start and sauntered up the street to Croke Park.

Teacher training takes three years, All-Ireland finals come around but once a season and there was no way she was going to miss the press launch for the ladies’ decider when it was only a stone’s throw away down Drumcondra Road.

She tells the story with a schoolgirl giggle, but there has been nothing immature about the Galway player’s performances on the senior team for the past two years.

Despite being the starting corner-back on last year’s All-Ireland winning senior team, McDonagh was also part of the minor outfit that defeated Donegal in the final during the summer.

Though eight of that minor panel have been double-jobbing with the seniors this season, only McDonagh and two others have been asked to be regulars on the first 15.

“Initially, it was very daunting because these were girls I used to look up to when I was younger. I still do. Seeing them up close in training was great at the time but it did take a few weeks to settle in,” she admitted.

“The girls are so accommodating, especially the older ones, and they made it a lot easier for players like me.”

McDonagh is just one of the many players to have come through the hugely successful underage structure that has seen Galway surpass Mayo as the pre-eminent team, first in the west and then nationwide.

Prior to the new millennium, Galway had left little impression on the ladies football scene. A junior final defeat to Tipperary in 1975 and a victory in the same grade 10 years later were their few claims.

The last five years has seen their graph rise inexorably, winning their first U16 All-Ireland in 2003 after two final defeats in 2000 and 2002, while the minors claimed national honours in 2000 as well as earlier this year.

There have been further talents sprouting at schools level, with Presentation College Tuam winning the Post-Primary Brickland Senior Shield in 2003, while their juniors lost their final the same season.

Such a surge has already fed success at adult level.

In 2000, Galway lost a junior final to Down but rectified that loss with a victory in 2002 that ensured their passage through to the senior grade where, of course, they currently reside as champions.

“Our team now is quite young but there’s still a good mix of experienced girls who have been there for a few years and others like myself who are still minor,” said McDonagh. “It’s no secret why Galway have done so well - the underage structure is brilliant.”

For all her talent and success, McDonagh could easily have been lost to Gaelic football. An equally effective soccer player with the Castle Hibs club, she played underage for Ireland last season before deciding to concentrate on GAA.

Her decision was obviously influenced in some small way by her family, all of whom are dyed-in-the-wool GAA enthusiasts, and her dad Owen coaches the local ladies team in Salthill.

“I used to play a lot of soccer but it was very hard to mix both of them. You really have to pick one or the other, especially when you’re trying to play Gaelic football to this level. You’re training four times a week. You have to choose,” she said.

“It was a bit frustrating. A lot of the girls are talented at other sports and it’s hard to give them up. I’d been playing underage for Ireland, which I’d always wanted to do. It’s about what you enjoy most and now I have the chance to play in Croke Park.

“Playing in Croke Park is the pinnacle to what you want to achieve. I’d never have the chance to do that with soccer. It was the camaraderie with the Gaelic too. We’re like a family on the Galway team and I couldn’t give that up.”