Schools GAA: St Mary’s Edenderry now up there with the best football schools

Hanging in Emmet McDonnell’s classroom in St Mary’s, Edenderry are the three AFL jerseys of past pupils Paul Cribbin, Seán Hurley and Daniel Flynn – gifts for the man they credit with bringing their school from senior ‘B’ to Hogan Cup glory.

When former Offaly manager McDonnell got involved with the school’s Gaelic football teams they were a solid Leinster ‘B’ team. Yet in the past six years Edenderry have reached three Leinster ‘A’ finals and two All-Ireland finals – finally lifting the Hogan Cup in 2012.

“I would have started in 2002 with a group of players who I suppose are now heavily involved with intercounty teams, but we were a ‘B’ team then. I brought that group through and followed them to senior in September 2006.

“Keith Cribbin would have been involved, Cathal McNally, they’re both with the Kildare senior team now. Then I suppose Seán Hurley and Paul Cribbin from Kildare too would have come in as young guys with that squad and Anton O’Sullivan, who is with the Offaly senior team now. Paul and Anton were actually starting on that team.

Ten points

“We ended up winning the All-Ireland ‘B’ colleges in 2007 with them. They had won a north Leinster under-14 and under-16 so a lot of work went into that bunch over the four years.

“That final was against St Eunan’s Letterkenny and Michael Murphy was in midfield for them and he was as big then as he is now. He scored 10 points against us but we beat them in extra-time and things just took off from there.”

Things certainly did take off; within two years of their debut senior ‘A’ campaign they were contesting an All-Ireland.

“The next year was our first year up in the ‘A’ and we got to the Leinster semi-final and Athlone beat us and went on to win it, but the following year we won it.

“Paul, Seán and Anton came of age and we ended up getting to the All-Ireland final, only narrowly losing out. Jack O’Connor’s son Éanna won it for Coláiste na Sceilge with the last kick of the ball, and I suppose there was a lot of disappointment after that final which spurred us on to come back and train that bit harder to win that Hogan Cup – and in 2012 we did.”

Training hard was a key component of St Mary’s incredible transformation with word of their early morning fitness sessions spreading across the province in those years.

“To be honest that was a little bit of a myth that grew legs and then more after it sprung up, but look we certainly did early morning training sessions. The reason we did that though was because we wanted to train at a good level but we wanted to do it without affecting academic performance.

“So rather than taking lads out during the school day, which wasn’t appropriate, we put it to the lads and it suited them.”

The three key men, pillars of the ‘new’ St Mary’s Edenderry who now travel the province with a swagger and the conviction of a school who’ve tasted success, would be Cribbin, Hurley and Flynn.

As has been the case for many years, from Roscommon’s Tommy Grehan in 1988 to Down’s Caolan Mooney in 2011 and beyond, the Hogan Cup has been sourced as a breeding ground for AFL recruiters in search of the country’s best young talent. Remarkably though, these three who were all consequentially signed up by AFL clubs, all hail from the same Johnstownbridge club.

“I suppose it all began actually the day of the 2009 Hogan Cup final. No sooner had the final whistle blown and the AFL scouts and Martin Kennedy from Dublin were on the field and they were speaking to Paul Cribbin straight away as he went off the pitch.

“Certainly I spoke to the lads over the years, and look, while they were certainly big losses for their club and county it was a fantastic opportunity for them to get and certainly one that’s be hard to be negative on.

“The scouts are looking for the best athletes and they are there in these school games. It’s the same with Caolan Mooney, he was the best colleges player in 2011 so it’s understandable that these lads are nabbed.

“In my classroom now in St Mary’s I have Paul Cribbin, Daniel Flynn and Seán Hurley’s AFL jerseys hanging in the room and there’s young lads coming in and looking at them everyday. These young lads are looking up to them, and it is something for them to aspire to.”

McDonnell has stepped down from the helm but according to current manager Enda Mitchell, his enduring influence is now imprinted upon all footballers in the school.

“It’s a mentality that is nearly ingrained from our under-14s now, these lads have been watching and they now know what’s become expected of them.

“Lads want to improve, we’re a small school, a mixed school and we’re punching above our weight.

“A lot of that is down to Emmet and the lads, they changed the mentality, put a focus on training correctly and put in a belief that we should be competing with these big schools.”