By Cian O’Connell

“Relief was the main emotion, that is for sure,” Maigh Cuilinn manager Cathal Clancy reflects about the immediate aftermath of the Galway SFC Final.

A gripping game concluded at Pearse Stadium with Maigh Cuilinn ahead of Salthill-Knocknacarra. Having lost a couple of deciders to Corofin, Clancy knew the value and importance of the 2025 decider.

It had been a demanding spell for Maigh Cuilinn off the pitch with the sad passing of former boss Don Connellan. The proud Roscommon man had contributed so much to the Maigh Cuilinn story.

Unassuming and decent, Connellan made Maigh Cuilinn believe, ensuring they triumphed out west in 2020 and 2022. Clancy was part of that coaching ticket, but the intervening campaigns had featured near misses. “We’ve seen and known the heartbreak getting to a final in the previous two years and losing,” Clancy remarks.

“No matter what had gone on in the club this year, we really wanted to get back to a final and win back the cup. That was a huge ambition at the start of the year.

“As things unfolded and as the year went on, we very sadly lost Don in early August, just as the championship was getting going. Although he’d been sick, it was unexpected at the time.

“That definitely put an extra pressure on us as a group to really want to get over the line to win that cup for Don, his friends, and family – just for everyone in the club. If there was ever a year that we felt it’d have given people a lift, it was this year.”

Nonetheless, Clancy tried to maintain balance. “We never tried to overly focus on that element of it because it is a very dangerous thing to do,” he adds.

“You can suddenly find yourself getting caught away with the emotion of it. What we did have was have a knowingness in the background that this was something we really wanted to do for Don and his family. Just to get over the line against Salthill, to win a seriously tight game, it was a tough game.

“That was huge for me and for the team, most of all, and the parish. It just felt that it was a year in which it was needed, it definitely felt like that after the final whistle.”

In Galway, Maigh Cuilinn have remained relevant for much of the past decade. That isn’t an easy task to accomplish. “Definitely not,” Clancy replies instantly.

“Don Connellan came in for 2018; I was in with him. That first year we lost the quarter-final by a point after extra-time to Mountbellew. They went on to lose the county final to Corofin after a replay.

“Then, in 2019, we got to the semi-final, and we were five points up at half-time against Tuam. We eventually lost to them which wasn’t great, but they lost the final after a replay against Corofin. So, we knew we’d a good squad with a lot of young lads coming through.

“Even though they were tough losses in ’18 and ’19, they did give us a barometer where we were at. Going into 2020, it was a bit of a different year, you got to go with the club first, we got all our county players together.

“Winning it was huge. From that semi-final onwards, we’ve been back to the semi-final every year since which is a great thing for a club that hadn’t been to one in 42 years at that point when we got to it in 2019.”

Ultimately, the diligent manner in which Maigh Cuilinn have integrated new players provides a source of optimism. “The team has transitioned nicely,” Clancy says. “If you go back to those early days, we’d a lot of great stalwarts, who played over the years with Maigh Cuilinn – Conor Bohan, Mark Lydon, Gareth Bradshaw, guys like this.

“Now, you come along you’ve still a nice core Seán Kelly, Dessie (Conneely), and David Wynne, but you’ve new younger lads coming through like Conor Corcoran, James McLoughlin or Seán O’Connor.

“In one sense that has been something we’ve managed well. There is a great underage structure. We’re competitive each year at the underage grades, we haven’t blown anyone away winning lots of U19 or U17 titles, but you’ll find most years we’re competitive.”

That is the key. It isn’t necessarily about acquiring silverware in the underage ranks, merely developing footballers, who can contribute to the adult ranks. “Even this year, our minors had a great year, they got to a county semi-final,” Clancy explains.

“We’ve had a few good minor campaigns in the last few years; we won one in 2022. So, you’ve that stream of underage talent coming through. The other thing is that in a place like Moycullen, it is a competitive sports environment for players.

“We’ve hurling, basketball and everything. I wouldn’t say we’ve a massive pool, but we’ve a steady stream of really high end, quality footballers coming through.

“There is always a good representation on Galway underage teams, that helps too when you’re getting guys through like Seán O’Connor this year.

“It is no co-incidence, while he had been featuring in our team over the last couple of years, coming on or starting the odd game, he’d a brilliant year with the Galway U20s this year and has followed that in with the Maigh Cuilinn senior team.”

Clancy played for Maigh Cuilinn, encountering delightful and demanding days along the way. What is the chief difference for an emerging young footballer in the club? “Bar the odd year or two, here or there, Maigh Cuilinn has always been a senior club,” Clancy says.

“That is one thing. Maigh Cuilinn went intermediate for two years in the 80s, went down for a year in 2007, and down for two years in 2014 and 2015. All throughout the rest of the time Maigh Cuilinn has been a senior club.

“As a young player in the club, whether it was me years ago or lads in and around my age, you always knew there was that aspiration to play senior football. That was the first thing.

“The second thing was Moycullen always had a great tradition having one or two lads on the county senior team to look up to. Whether that was Joe McLoughlin going back to the 70s, or Padraig Kelly, the Kellys father in the 80s, or Paul Clancy in the 90s, there has always been that to look up to.

“For me and lads my age when you were playing senior, you wanted to get in playing senior football and to play with those lads.”

Nuggets of optimism were evident. The fact that Maigh Cuilinn are competing in significant matches at county and provincial level matters deeply. “What we didn’t have was a huge amount of success at championship level on the pitch to follow,” Clancy adds.

“For many years, I was part of teams that tried to make that breakthrough, we’d a good team in 2008 that won an Intermediate All-Ireland. Then, in the few years afterwards we’d a few right battles with Killererin at senior, and just couldn’t quite get past them.

“That is the big difference looking at the younger generation going to the Pearse Stadium or on Sunday going to Dr Hyde Park, they’re watching Maigh Cuilinn play in really big games at semi-final and final stages of county or Connacht championships.

“That definitely has to help these younger lads coming through, to know that you can go on to play in these big games with the club.”

Sunday’s attractive AIB Connacht Club SFC showpiece against a dynamic St Brigid’s outfit at King & Moffatt Dr Hyde Park is the next test. It is a stage on which every club in the province wants to be operating. “For almost all clubs starting out in their county championships – you can never look too far beyond it,” Clancy says.

“In Galway, anyway, as we know. Between ourselves, the battles we’ve had with Oughterard, St James’, Tuam, Corofin, Salthill – it is just such a hard championship to get out of.

“In Roscommon, from the limited bit I know about it, there is no difference because you’ve multiple different champions between Strokestown, Pearses, and Brigid’s.

“You don’t start out the year planning to be in a Connacht final, you certainly hope it along the way, but when you get out of your county and get into the provincial championship, you can definitely settle down and start going game by game. Now, that we’re there, it is brilliant to be in it.”

Clancy’s schedule is busy, but there is joy in the journey. Open to ideas and new influences, Clancy credits those who continue to assist Maigh Cuilinn.

Caroline Currid’s sessions have been impactful, while on the field Kieran Murphy’s coaching work is critical. Murphy will be part of new Clare manager Paul Madden’s set-up in 2026. “It can’t be understated or overstated how important it is to have a really good backroom team,” Clancy remarks.

“The reality is, even when I go back to the early days when Don and I started in 2018, to where it is now. The amount of additional work and time that goes in, it just has ramped up more over the years. We’re just lucky to have a brilliant backroom team.

“Obviously, Kieran Murphy has been our main coach in the last few years, he is just a top, top fella on and off the pitch. On the pitch, his coaching and sessions are just brilliant.

“It goes further; we’ve Brian Roache in this year doing the strength and conditioning. Anyone involved in the team, it is area in the new game with injuries and the extra conditioning requirements, you’ve to have that piece right. He was one little new piece in the puzzle this year that was a big factor for us.”

Connecting the pieces is what Clancy strives to do. “You’ve local guys, James Faherty, Henry Lydon, long standing friends of mine, I played with them, they’re helping out as selectors and coaches,” Clancy says.

“They do different roles. We’ve Gabriel Collins and Ian Kenny living locally, who’re playing a role. We’ve a young fella, Gavin Ryan, doing our stats for the last couple of years. The seven or eight lads are there night in, night out, doing all the work that needs to be done in the background.

“For me, I might be out in front, but the lads in the backroom are doing a huge amount of unseen work.

“I’m just delighted for them, a group of us are there together, it was great to win a county title to get some recognition for them. Hopefully on Sunday we can go a step further and get a Connacht cup, too.”

By Paul Keane

Cein D’Arcy jetted out to the south of Spain late last month for the wedding of his Galway football teammate Johnny Heaney.

They were colleagues at Croke Park in late June, when an All-Ireland SFC quarter-final tie against Meath, that the Connacht champions were expected to win, went against them.

Perhaps on a quiet moment over the wedding weekend in Nerja, an hour or so up the coast from Malaga, they chatted about that painful afternoon.

Or maybe they went a little further back, to 2020, when they were the only two Galway players to start every single game of that season’s Covid interrupted Allianz League campaign.

They both started the Connacht final that 2020 season too but, for D’Arcy, it was his last game in a Galway jersey until 2024. By then, he was a Ballyboden St Enda’s player in Dublin and he credits much of his second coming, and the rekindling of his best form, with his 2023 switch to south Dublin.

“I have to credit the environment, credit the group here,” said D’Arcy, who is currently participating in the AIB Leinster club SFC after helping ‘Boden claim a fifth Dublin title last month.

“The lads unlock that within you. You can leverage off their behaviours and what they’re doing. And you try to go beyond that again. So it’s been a revelation for me.

“I was developed and nurtured in Caherlistrane, and in Galway, so they deserve so much credit. It’s not like I came with bad football (behind me). I’d probably just lost my way a little bit as a man. When I came in here with these lads they had me turning that corner and I really appreciate that.”

D’Arcy’s county colleague, Shane Walsh, set the template a couple of seasons back for Galway players winning Dublin, Leinster and All-Ireland titles, doing so with Kilmacud Crokes. Perhaps that is a journey D’Arcy will now go on himself.

It’s a case of so far, so good having struck the crucial goal in the county final that helped ‘Boden see off Na Fianna, a week before Heaney’s wedding. He lined out again last Sunday in Wexford when the visitors turned in a powerful second-half performance to see off Castletown by nine points in a provincial quarter-final.

Next up for ‘Boden is a Leinster semi-final against Tullamore, in Tullamore, on Saturday week.

So did he watch Walsh and that Crokes team with envy?

“I’d envy him when I’m at Loughgeorge in December, running through the wet and the rain with Galway,” smiled D’Arcy, referencing pre-season with Padraic Joyce’s county panel.

“Mind you, what we trained in for the last week was just as bad as any of that. Ah look, the journeys are special when you’re with the club, so you do envy them from that perspective. The other side of it is that when you’re in your pre-season with Galway, you’re anticipating the year ahead and building towards that, so that has its own novelty and its own charm, so you look forward to that too.”

D’Arcy probably should be a little jaded at this stage of the season but he comes across as energised and desperate to keep Ballyboden’s winning run going.

When the wedding celebrations were over, for example, he returned immediately and immersed himself in the preparations for the provincial championship.

“The day I got back, on the Monday, we were back into training again,” said the versatile midfielder. “We realised we had an opportunity, because we had the four-week break (after the county final), to give it a good lash and we trained hard. Those third and fourth weeks we trained hard! I was delighted to get back into it because the journey is not over. That’s something we were stressing after the county final as well.”

D’Arcy isn’t the only non-Dubliner in Cavan native Eamon O’Reilly’s Ballyboden group. Antrim footballer Peter Healy, who played a central role in the team’s first goal last Sunday, 2022 Kerry All-Ireland SFC medallist Pa Warren and ex-Kingdom U-20 Michael O’Gara all featured in the win over Castletown too.

“The roots are very rural,” said D’Arcy of the club. “It’s built up with men from Mayo, men from Galway, people from down the country.”

They produced a special second-half performance in the southeast to overwhelm a talented Castletown team. Summer football or winter football, it doesn’t seem to bother Ballyboden.

“It’s a power-based game when you’re playing in these conditions at this time of the year,” said D’Arcy. “Those lads are powerful, they can move their legs, they can get it pumping. As I say, there’s been an awful lot of work done from a fitness perspective so when it comes down to that aspect, these lads won’t be found wanting. It’s just, can you execute the basics well, and consistently, in these conditions? That’s the big thing.”

They could yet finish the year on the most pristine surface of them all, at Croke Park, as the Leinster final is scheduled to be played there on December 6.

“We won’t look that far ahead,” insisted D’Arcy, eyeing their semi-final against a talented and in-form Tullamore. “We’ll take it step by step, a game at a time. I know Stephen Rochford is in with Tullamore so he’ll have a few tricks up his sleeve. That’s the next job and we won’t look any further than the next game.”