An Ghaeltacht realise potential and heal two decade old hurt
Brian Ó Beaglaoich of An Ghaeltacht with team manager Feargal Ó Sé. Pic: ©INPHO/James Lawlor
Feargal Ó Sé and his An Ghaeltacht management team brought the entire panel together at the start of summer. They asked each and every player what they wanted to achieve.
The reply of new recruit Aidan Walsh never left them. It was brought up before yesterday’s throw-in. His reply has now been realised.
“Aidan came in, and this is before any championship game was played, and he said, ‘I don't think the players in this club realise the potential that's in them’,” Ó Sé recalled.
“It took a Corkman to come into the club and say that, and how true he was. Everybody in the club now believes the potential that is in these players.”
Their potential at intermediate level has been exhausted and fulfilled. The 10th strongest team in Kerry is now the supreme intermediate team in the country.
After becoming the eighth club from the Kingdom to lift this particular piece of silverware, a large An Ghaeltacht flag was passed down from the stand and placed in the middle of the Croke Park field, around which players and management stood.
“At the start of the year, we used the metaphor of the chain. We said that in any team, there's weak links and strong links, and our job as management was to make the chain as strong as we could,” the manager explained.
“There were different links added and subtracted and changed across the year, but today we closed it in the middle of the field after the game, we put the cup in the middle, and there was redemption in that I can assure you.”
Redemption refers to 2004. Feargal was player-manager when An Ghaeltacht came up one-point short of Caltra in the senior club decider.
None of the drama or distress of 22 years ago presented itself here. Glory came at their ease. An utterly comprehensive final victory.
A two-decade-old wound found healing at 5pm on Sunday evening.
“When that happened, it was the end of the world for us,” Ó Sé said of the 2004 St Patrick’s Day heartbreak.
“It was absolutely devastating at the time, and it stuck with me personally for a very, very long time. But we, as a management, made sure that this new brand of Gaeltacht footballer, who now have ownership of the Gaeltacht jerseys, they make their own history and they have made history here.
“Our club now has an All-Ireland. All that's good and different about West Kerry, that bit of fiántas, this madness in us, that was evident today, be it Cormac Begley with a concertina inside in the dressing-room or singing An Poc Ar Buile on the steps of Croke Park, that's all about what we are and it was great to see.
“And I told the lads to stay out as long as you can on this field because you never know when you're going to be back here again.”
The post-match festivities carried a great deal more entertainment than their final hour to the summit. Their Derry opponents sat far too deep and allowed An Ghaeltacht to build as they pleased. The unhurried and unchallenged West Kerry men oft times built at pedestrian pace.
Incisions didn’t come quickly. Incisions came after two and three-minute holding patterns along the Glenullin 45-metre line.
Of course, the club of 181 adult members won’t care that this was an awful spectacle of a decider. They won’t care that they went the first 19 minutes of the second half without a score. They won’t care that they managed just two scores in the entire second half.
There was more than enough theatre in the extra-time semi-final squeeze against Sallins. Being the team with more scores on the board at full-time was more than enough for yesterday. The how and why were irrelevant to them.
The how and who of their 0-9 to 0-1 interval lead was Brian Ó Beaglaoich. The centre-back provided the assist to Seán Ó Cuinn for their second. For their opening two-point free, kicked by younger brother Ruaidhrí, it was Brian who was fouled.
He won the break on the following restart. He broke the tackle and laid off the assist to Éanna Ó Conchúir for a 0-7 to 0-1 advantage. And in the last play of the half there he was on his own 20-metre line dispossessing Eunan Boylan.
His half-back colleagues, Pádraig Óg Ó Sé and Aodhna Ó Beaglaoich, had their moments of effectiveness too. For their eighth white flag, it was Pádraig Óg with the intercept and Aodhna’s burst drawing the foul.
Chrissy Dempsey kicked Glenullin’s opener on eight minutes. There were 51 minutes on the clock when the team that posted 5-8 in their All-Ireland semi-final added another.
No contest to report here, just glory for An Ghaeltacht. And Slánú.
R Ó Beaglaoich (0-6, tp free, 0-2 free); C Ó Beaglaoich (0-2, tp); S Ó Cuinn, É Ó Conchúir, S Ó Gairbhí, C Ó Corrduibh (0-1 each).
N McNicholl (0-2 frees), C Rafferty (0-2 each); C Dempsey, F Close (0-1 each).
S Ó Lúing; C Ó Murchú, A Mac Amhlaoibh, JJ Mac Liam; P Óg Ó Sé, B Ó Beaglaoich, A Ó Beaglaoich; A Breathnach, C Ó Beaglaoich; S Ó Cuinn, R Ó Beaglaoich, PJ Mac Láimh; C Ó Corrduibh, É Ó Conchúir, S Ó Gairbhí.
Tomás Ó Sé (DC) for Ó Gairbhí (54); G Ó Cinnéide for Ó Cuinn (55); C Ó Riagáin for Ó Corrduibh (62).
N O’Kane; E Boylan, D O’Kane, E O’Kane; C Rafferty, J O’Kane, D McNicholl; T Bradley, N McNicholl; Cathal Hasson, C Dempsey, C Bradley; C Mullan, E Bradley, R McNicholl.
WJ Bradley for Hasson (41); F Close for Mullan (44); Cormac Hasson for D McNicholl, J McNicholl for R McNicholl (both 48); D O’Kane for Dempsey (55).
F Kelly (Longford).
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