Long-standing servant in Shannon's cause

All-Ireland League: Gavin Cummiskey talks to the Shannon captain, Colm McMahon

Colm McMahon has been in the club trenches for 10 years now. A rarity, having flirted with a professional career in the blood red of Munster, he returned this season to life as a quantity surveyor for McInerney Construction.

It meant Shannon got full use of the versatile flanker.

Tom Hayes has collected the AIB All-Ireland League trophy for the last two years but the brother of the Ireland prop John Hayes signed up for Plymouth this season. Coach Mick Galwey needed a new captain.

"Guys in the club will probably tell you I have something to say whether they want to hear it or not," says McMahon. "The club have always tried to concentrate on a guy who will be with them all year rather then someone involved in the Munster set-up. I suppose I was the longest-standing around. That's maybe how it came about."

The Chinese philosopher Confucius said the superior man is modest in speech but excels in his actions.

After a summer of mass exodus, Shannon needed a leader in a period of onfield uncertainty.

Their gargantuan prop Tony Buckley has been unavailable. The evolution of Jerry Flannery and Ian Dowling into Munster regulars - not to mention the emergence of the former as a world-class hooker - is something the club can take pride in.

Another hooker, Nigel Conroy, also departed. Fiach O'Loughlin - a Shannon man since birth - is playing scrumhalf for Clontarf on Saturday. The swinging door continues with Stephen Keogh and Trevor Hogan off to Leinster and Brian Tuohy to Rotherham after this weekend.

Considering the disruption, Shannon shouldn't be defending their title on Saturday. Yet, they are no ordinary club. Seán Cronin solved the hooker conundrum and was capped for Ireland at under-21. A mean customer, he too will probably be lost soon enough.

"They've had to be replaced," McMahon explains dryly. "Maybe a lot of people doubted us at the start of the year - just said we wouldn't be able to bounce back from losing so many - but guys stepped up to the mark and put in a big effort. We're getting our reward by being in the final on Saturday. Hopefully we will be there, thereabouts.

"This year the under-20s are after winning the All-Ireland League. We even brought one guy in for the last league game; John Clogan had a fine game in the centre when Andrew Thompson and Eoin Cahill were out injured. We need to get two or three players like him each season."

Hogan and Donnacha Ryan came into the engine room, Ryan replacing the promoted Keogh at number eight for the semi-final against Garryowen in Dooradoyle last Saturday when Shannon survived the most exciting local derby in living memory.

"It was great, obviously the manner in which we won with the last kick of the game. Garryowen feel hard done by, I suppose. They might have felt we robbed it but we were thrilled just to get through to the final again."

Did Shannon steal it?

"No, I thought it was pretty much an even game all the way through and I would suggest before they got their penalty to go ahead there was a maul we might have got a penalty from.

"I think we just tipped the balance and deserved our win. They probably feel we robbed them but I feel we just pipped them." At 29, McMahon claims to be on the downward descent of his playing days. Munster is no longer a dream. He was cursed by coming to prominence alongside the greatest surge of loose forwards in Irish rugby history. Most of the talent came out of Shannon.

The presence of Eddie Halvey, Alan Quinlan and Anthony Foley in the Shannon and subsequently the Munster back row of the late 1990s meant his pace was utilised elsewhere.

"It might have been Declan Kidney's first experiment with swapping positions. I played in the centre and the wing for Munster.

"I played a season with the club at centre. To be honest with you, it didn't feel right and I enjoyed it when I got back into the back row."

He seeks a fifth All-Ireland League winners' medal on Saturday but this isn't even close to being a record as Andrew Thompson is chasing his eighth.

That is barely relevant. Reversing the 32-18 drubbing at Castle Avenue back in January is the priority. They were cooked up front that day before being filleted out wide, conceding five tries.

Not an option this time. The three-in-a-row beckons and McMahon could well be the longest one standing.