'It has been a struggle at times' - Sarah Gormally reflects on Kilkerrin-Clonberne's five-in-a-row journey

FIVE IN A ROW: Kilkerrin-Clonberne Sarah Gormally lifts the Dolores Tyrrell Memorial Cup. Pic: Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile.

It has proven to be a long journey up to this point and Sarah Gormally has been there every step of the way for Kilkerrin-Clonberne’s march towards becoming one of the most formidable club sides in the history of Gaelic games.

A fortnight ago, Gormally started at full-back when Kilkerrin-Clonberne claimed their fifth successive AIB All-Ireland senior club football championship title with a 2-8 to 1-5 final victory against St Ergnat’s, Moneyglass of Antrim at Croke Park.

Supporters of the Galway club have become readily accustomed to Gormally occupying this key defensive role on their remarkable run of success as she also donned the number three jersey for the quartet of All-Ireland triumphs they enjoyed before this year.

In addition to winning the last eight AIB Connacht senior club crowns, Kilkerrin-Clonberne have won 13 senior county championships on the bounce in Galway. This impressive sequence was preceded by an intermediate county final victory in 2012, but Gormally’s odyssey as an adult club player commenced before that particular win.

“I still remember the first intermediate county final we were in and we lost to Caltra Cuans, who were in the intermediate All-Ireland this year. I came on as a sub that day and I think I was possibly 14. Then the second year we won the intermediate county title and went on to an All-Ireland semi-final that went to a replay. Which at that time at 15 was absolute heartbreak,” Gormally recalls.

“To go and lose an All-Ireland semi-final at intermediate grade. I don’t think we expected after that we would hold the county title in Galway for the following 13 years. Which is just phenomenal. It has been a struggle at times.

“I don’t think back then when we won our first county title, met the likes of Carnacon and then started meeting the likes of Mourneabbey, that we would have said ‘God, we’ll go on to win five-in-a-row’. I don’t think anyone would believe you.”

While Waterford’s Ballymacarbry still hold the record for consecutive All-Ireland senior club titles in ladies football thanks to their extraordinary seven-in-a-row success from 1989 to 1995, Kilkerrin-Clonberne’s ‘drive for five’ is nevertheless an immense achievement.

Though it wasn’t necessarily on their minds during the year, Gormally acknowledges that winning a fifth All-Ireland in-a-row is pretty special for her and Kilkerrin-Clonberne - particularly with new challengers such as Comeragh Rangers (Waterford) and St Ergnat’s being the ones to test their mettle in the latter stages of the competition.

“At the start of every year, it’s not something we think about. It is getting tougher every year we’ve been coming out of the county and then you turn into the provincials. This year, it does feel extra special, winning the five-in-a-row. We kind of had new opponents in each game as well, in the All-Ireland semi and the final.

“When you’re meeting teams that you’ve no experience of dealing with, that brings its own kind of nervousness and obviously the biggest risk is complacency as well.

“Winning this year has meant that we probably fought it out better, in a sense that we had to really dig deep and trust in our own team. Rather than knowing that ‘right, we’ve played this team before and we know how to handle it’. It was all brand new for us this year in the All-Ireland semi and the final.”

Despite the massive amount of work that has been put into the club since the beginning of the 21st century (if not before then), local schools have also played a crucial role in the development of Kilkerrin-Clonberne’s current crop of players.

During her time as a primary school student at Clonberne National School in north-east Galway, Gormally was in the same year as team-mate Olivia Divilly and a year above the Ward sisters, Louise and Nicola.

A love of Gaelic football was instilled in this foursome from a very young age in Clonberne NS and this was also the case for the younger generation of Kilkerrin-Clonberne stars.

“Our two teachers at junior infants and senior infants, Mr Walsh and Ms Hussey. They are retired now, but they had a huge emphasis on Gaelic football. In Clonberne, we had three pitches. Based on those pitches, you would try to move up to the third pitch and that’s how you knew you were excelling at football.

“Every lunch time and after school, there was a great emphasis on being out there and training. In one sense, we’re quite lucky with where we’re from. There’s nothing else to do.

“We’ve probably had two teams coming up that would have won a lot. Our grade were Olivia, Nicola and Louise, and then two or three years under that then you have the likes of the Noones, Ailish Morrissey, Chloe Miskell. They were a great underage team as well and when those teams amalgamated, that is kind of what is forming the team now.”

There hasn’t been a huge amount of change to the present team since that first All-Ireland success of 2021 with 11 of those who featured in that final against Cork’s Mourneabbey (which actually took place in January 2022) also in the starting 15 that faced St Ergnat’s two weeks ago.

This is in spite of the fact work and college life has brought many of those on the team away from their home parish. From Gormally’s perspective, she spent six years at Summerhill Veterinary Hospital in Ennis - after previously studying veterinary medicine at UCD in Dublin – and is now working at All Paws Vets just outside of Limerick city.

This hasn’t made things easy for Gormally and her club colleagues, but the determination to line out for Kilkerrin-Clonberne has led to them regularly making the commute from their place of residence for training and matches.

“I’m getting further and further away from the club. It does make it difficult, but obviously the success, it does drive you to want to go on and to play more. Definitely the group of girls, they drive you on and especially when you see other girls doing it,” Gormally added.

“There’s girls coming from Dublin and there’s a few more. Obviously Willie [Ward, team manager] himself works in Limerick and drives up and down.”