Family affair as Aaron Niland happy to follow in Evan's footsteps with Galway
Mark Coleman of Cork and Galway's Aaron Niland, at Blarney Castle, ahead of the All-Ireland SHC semi-final. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Inspiration was always incredibly close at hand. Inspiration was across the dinner table and down the hall. Inspiration was further over on the couch and at the other end of the back lawn.
Eight years separate Aaron and Evan Niland. A sizable enough gap for the younger sibling to have spent his childhood and recently concluded teenage years in awe of the big brother.
The head was forever tilted idolisingly upwards, and with good reason.
Aaron was just nine years of age when Evan went eight converted frees from eight attempts in a top-scoring and man-of-the-match performance on the afternoon of the 2015 All-Ireland minor final.
He was 12 when the big brother struck 1-7 to spearhead Galway’s first-ever Leinster U21 crown in 2018.
You didn’t need to be an impressionable 14-year-old to be utterly impressed by your older brother being thrown into a Covid All-Ireland semi-final on the cusp of injury-time and landing two booming white flags to bring Galway level on 75 minutes with no less an opposition than Limerick.
Neither did you need to be let into League matches the following year to be in reverence of Evan seizing his first-team promotion by top-scoring with 0-42 off three starts.
So yeah, Aaron Niland never went beyond the front door for inspiration. He simply didn’t need to. It was always right there next to him.
“It was massive watching Evan growing up playing for Galway. That's what you grow up trying to be. I was watching him growing up, trying to be as good as he was, and now the dream is just to play at the biggest stage with him,” says the 20-year-old University of Galway commerce student.
The dream of sharing a senior dressing-room with the older brother became an inevitability in the eyes of everyone else when Aaron started out on his own maroon jersey.
No matter how often it is harked back to, reference to his performance in the 2022 All-Ireland minor semi-final, when still U16, will never reach saturation point. Included in his 2-11 (0-7 frees) was an absolutely wondrous equalising goal on 58 minutes. Go YouTube it, if you’re unfamiliar.
He was 18 when the call-up came from fellow Clarinbridge clubman Micheál Donoghue. A call-up at that age can both thrill and terrify. There was no fear of the latter with Aaron. The older brother was drowned in questions and drained of information.
“It could be anything, the crowd, what the lads are like? Growing up watching Cathal Mannion, Pádraic Mannion, Conor Whelan, and just trying to get to know what they're like.
“That's obviously half the battle [that Evan was in there already], learning from him and learning from the rest of the lads makes it a lot easier for us younger lads coming in.”
2025 panel membership was an educational and observational brief. No game minutes, just exclusive learning. His eyes were opened to the physical development he must undergo.
The education is ongoing. The education is now taking place from inside the opposition half.
The brief widened 66 minutes into the Round 2 League fixture at home to Cork on January 31. After a misfiring night, Cathal Mannion was eventually relieved of free-taking duties. Niland nailed the four he stood over. He was responsible for Galway’s final five points.
No more than inspiration, Niland never went beyond the front door for a free-taking muse.
“I copied my brother's technique when I was younger,” he says of Evan’s well-known dead-ball proficiency.
“Because we’re both left-sided, a similar kind of playing style as well, I just copied what he was doing and got used to it. That's what I would have practised growing up, and then it's just sticking to that.
“I have my back to the goal a bit more. It's just the way I turn my neck or something, I find it easier to look at the goal like that. I know it looks a bit weird sometimes but if it works, I don't really care.”
The younger brother’s style is reminiscent of Clarinbridge’s other high-profile free-taker. Carrie Dolan’s injury-time stance when winning Galway last year’s All-Ireland camogie final is a mirror image of Aaron's.
“She would be Evan's girlfriend. I don't know him without her. I'd say they get ideas off each other about frees, so I think that is where it all started.
“I would be more similar to Carrie and the way she turns her back to it. I don't know why, it is just the way it works out.” Tn/ he 20-year-old sits atop the Galway scoring chart with 1-30 on the run to Saturday. Fellow U20 newcomer Jason Rabbitte sits fourth in the open
play chart with 2-7. The pair shared a classroom at Pres Athenry before they shared the inside line of the Galway senior attack. They lost two Croke Cup finals at GAA HQ before tasting a first victory there four weeks ago.
“Me and Jason would be very close. We know each other inside out at this stage. It is probably a help.
“Croke Park is a different sort of spot, the game can pass you out before you even know it. I would have been very disappointed with how I played in both schools finals. Just trying to correct that, I suppose, and get over the line.”
That he did. Next up is to have two brothers going out the front door to Croker on the third weekend of July.
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