Gilroy delights as hat-trick complete

AS Pat Gilroy will tell you, it never rains but it pours.

For two decades he had plugged away manfully for St Vincent’s without picking up an elusive championship medal.

Now, within the space of five months, he has completed the hat-trick of county, provincial and national titles.

Having won league, Leinster and All-Ireland medals during his stint with Dublin in the 1990s, the 36-year old company director has now amassed the full set of honours at club and county levels.

“That’s everything done alright. I might take a bit of a breather now,” he joked. “I did say there was nothing like winning the Dublin championship after 23 years. That was such a huge day but this does surpass it — to win an All-Ireland final for your club.

“It is absolutely unreal. We set out to win the Dublin championship so this is just beyond our wildest dreams. It is incredible.”

The Marino club has done it the hard way. Far from favourites to win the county championship last year, they entered the Leinster Championship with little fanfare and needed a replay to squeeze past Meath’s Senchalstown in the first round.

They have been purring since. Portlaoise were destroyed in the semi-final and the Laois side would prove to be just one of the three previous All-Ireland champions dispatched along the way.

It was last month in Navan when the wider GAA community really woke up to the possibility that St Vincent’s were again on the brink of emulating the escapades of their legendary predecessors from the 1960s and 70s.

“The Crossmaglen semi-final was a big, big win for us, considering who they are,” said Gilroy.

“They have been specialists at the club game for the last 10 years or whatever and hopefully we can become specialists at it now as well.

“There is a great future for us on the back of this — and Dublin. That team hasn’t encountered any team better than them in the last few years and hopefully it will be the same next year and we will go the whole way again.”

Were it any other club flirting with talk of dynasties after one national title, it would seem premature but Vincent’s have the pedigree and the talent to suggest that they will remain a serious player in club football nationwide in the years to come.

“The work that we put in over the last few years at juvenile has paid off. There are a group of the lads on this team that won an Under-14 All-Ireland (in Croke Park) in 2000. They have huge confidence in themselves.”

Central to the explosion of youth in Marino has been a man who left his own teenage years behind him 50 years ago.

Mickey Whelan is all but certain to call time on his reign as senior manager with Vincent’s in the wake of Monday’s success and, though he has repeatedly watered down his own input, everyone knows it would not have happened without him.

Manager of Vincent’s when they won their last county title in 1984 prior to a 23-year drought, he has cached and cajoled the current crop through from that U-21 success four years ago and through to St Patrick’s Day success.

“Fair play to Mickey for getting a group of players prepared so perfectly for games in September through to December and again in February and March. Mickey is a genius. He really is exceptional, with the young players in particular,” said Gilroy.