GAA talking points: Can Kerins O’Rahilly's snap Kerry’s poor club haul?
KEY MAN: Tommy Walsh of Kerins O'Rahilly's. Pic: Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile
Memories. Old club tales. Unique stories. By the mid 1980s, the vast majority of All-Ireland club football titles had been won by the big city and town clubs, or colleges sides. Nemo Rangers, St Finbarr’s, St Vincent’s, Portlaoise, Austin Stacks, UCD and Thomond College won 12 of the first 14 All-Ireland titles between 1971—’84. Castleisland isn’t a small place but the success of Castleisland Desmonds in 1985 was a complete bolter from the pack.
Their odyssey was all the more memorable again because their quest to become the only other side along with the Barrs (at the time) to win successive All-Ireland club titles fell narrowly short when Castleisland lost the 1986 final to Burren of Down. Yet what made their Munster and All-Ireland success all the more unique again was that team didn’t even win a Kerry county title in either of those years. Even more incredibly, Castleisland were still an Intermediate team at the time.
The circuitous route to the 1985 All-Ireland title began in a 1984 Kerry county league game against Beaufort, which Castleisland had to win to finish in the top four in order to gain access to the Kerry county championship.
It was nearly all over before it began because Desmonds were down seven points late on before a late surge got them over the line. The winning point was kicked by Dinny Porter from 50 yards, which many people at the match felt was two yards wide.
Castleisland eventually made it to the county club final where they beat St Mary’s Cahirciveen after a replay in late November, which allowed the club to represent Kerry in that year’s Munster championship after West Kerry had beaten South Kerry in the county final.
It would be inconceivable now to think that an Intermediate team could win an All-Ireland club football title, particularly when the Barrs are the only other side – in 1987 – to win an All-Ireland club title having failed to win the previous year’s county final.
Other teams have gone close from the same position; Dr Crokes won Munster titles in 1990 and 2006 despite not winning the county title in each of those seasons; Castlehaven won the 1997 Munster title after losing the Cork county final to Beara.
Castleisland’s success stemmed from a unique starting position that is only available in Kerry, where if a club team does not come out on top in the county championship, the winners of the Kerry club championship go forward to Munster. It has often been more complex again as the pathway has sometimes involved various other routes; in 2000, Glenflesk represented Kerry as one-off Millennium Cup winners.
Although Desmonds seemingly came from nowhere in the mid 1980s, they hadn’t either. In 1981 and 1982, the club played five games in Munster after South Kerry had won successive county titles. In 1982, Castleisland defeated Clonmel Commercials after a replay before losing the Munster final to the Barrs after a replay.
The strength of the Divisional sides has meant that 28 different teams have represented Kerry in the Munster club championship as non-Kerry champions. Nine have gone on to reach Munster finals, which can be distilled into just five clubs; Austin Stacks (1974, 2021), Castleisland (1982, 1984, 1985), Crokes (1990, 2006), Glenflesk (2000) and Kerins O’Rahillys (2009).
Only four of those teams have gone on to win Munster – Castleisland and Crokes, who both won it twice. So can O’Rahillys finally smash a poor trend by adding to that haul tomorrow?
Watty Grahams Glen never had a winning tradition but, whatever they had, it had collapsed by the middle of the 2000s. Despite having such a big population in Maghera, they couldn’t even win an U14C Derry championship. Something had to change. Slowly, it did.
A series of meetings that took place in the club in the middle of that decade set out a new path, with a completely new destination in mind. After re-evaluating how and where they were going wrong, the standards and targets of the club were completely overhauled and recalibrated.
Gradually, the seeds began to flower into glorious shoots. Prior to 2010, Glen had only ever won one minor championship but then they went on to win four Derry minor titles in-a-row between 2011-’14. Yet their biggest statement of intent, which underlined just how far Glen had travelled, was in going on to win four Ulster minor club titles in-a-row.
Only two clubs – Killybegs and Ballinderry – had managed to win successive titles in the history of a competition that first began in 1982, but Glen doubled up on that tally. They won their fourth against Southern Gaels (Gowna and Lacken from Cavan) by six points after extra-time but Glen had won their three previous titles by an aggregate margin of 32 points.
On the team which won the first title in 2011, 12 were underage the following year. Eight players started on three of the successful teams while Danny Tallon and Cathal Mulholland from the current senior team played on all four successful sides. Glen had 11 players on the St Pat’s Maghera Hogan Cup (All-Ireland colleges) winning squad in 2013. Glen also reached the Derry minor final in 2015 but were beaten by Slaughtneil.
It was unprecedented success for a club which had been regarded as underachievers for too long. Glen won an Intermediate title in 1983 and, while they won a senior league in 1987, they struggled to make a mark at senior level. They did have three players – Enda Gormley and Damien and Fergal McCusker – on the starting team which won Derry’s only senior All-Ireland in 1993, but the county championship was loaded with strong teams at that time.
Glen did make a burst in the early 1990s when reaching successive senior semi-finals in 1992 and 1993, but it took them ten years to get back to another semi-final in 2003. Their underage success altered everything but it took Glen until 2019 to reach their first county senior final, which they lost to Magherafelt by one point.
Their oldest player on that team was 26 and by the time they won their first county title in 2021, Glen were finally ready to take off. Successive county titles has now led them into their first Ulster final. They take on the All-Ireland champions in Kilcoo tomorrow but the majority of these Glen players know what it takes to win Ulster titles.
Nearly two decades on from when the first seeds were sown, Glen are firmly on the cusp of reaping a glorious harvest.
When Newcastlewest defeated The Nire in last year’s Munster quarter-final, their victory was noteworthy for a number of reasons; it was the first time a Limerick club had won a Munster championship game in 13 years; it was the first time Newcastlewest had won a Munster championship match since 1987, when they reached the final.
In their defence, Newcastlewest had only played three games in the province in the meantime. O’Donovan Rossa hammered them en route to the 1992-’93 All-Ireland title but their next two outings in the last decade hinted at a club edging closer to the destination their forefathers had reached.
In 2015 and 2019, Newcastlewest were edged out by one score in games against Clonmel Commercials and Nemo Rangers respectively, with both clubs going on to win the title in those years. Beating The Nire last year by two points was a big breakthrough but it still only took them so far because Newcastlewest were crushed by Austin Stacks two weeks later.
If anything, that setback has only made them stronger. Last month’s county final against Adare looked to have gone beyond them with the match deep in injury-time but Newcastlewest launched one last attack and full-back Darren O’Doherty took the match to extra-time, which the west Limerick men won by three points. It was a similar scenario in the Munster semi-final when Clonmel led by one point in the eighth minute of additional time before Ruadhan O’Connor’s point sent the game into extra-time.
Spearheaded by Iain Corbett and Cian Sheehan, All-Star nominees in 2020 and 2022 respectively, a young team is evolving and maturing with each game. Although the Clonmel match went to extra-time, the 1-16 Newcastlewest kicked that afternoon was more than double what they managed against The Nire and Stacks last year when they only totalled 0-8 in both games.
They have become more adventurous and incisive going forward but Newcastlewest have also been hard to beat. They held Adare to seven scores and Clonmel to just 12 scores over close to 90 minutes of football on both days. They did ship goals in both games but Newcastlewest didn’t concede a green flag in Limerick until their seventh championship match.
With Newcastlewest having six players on this year’s Limerick U20 squad, four of whom played against Clonmel and Adare – Ruadhan O’Connor, Emmett Ritger, Aaron Neville and Todd Donovan – there are similarities to the last Newcastlewest team which reached a Munster final. That sojourn was largely a product of the club’s incredible underage success during the 1980s when Newcastlewest won five U-21 titles and two minor crowns. Yet after winning a first county title that year, Newcastlewest failed to win a championship match in 1988 and 1989 and it took them until 1992 to get back to another county final.
Prior to the outset of the last decade, Newcastlewest had only reached five finals in their history. However, the club has reached seven of the last 12 finals, winning four, including three of the last four. And now the next aim is to take that glorious next step in Munster 35 years on from the club’s last appearance in a final.
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