West awakened to an air of expectation

CONNACHT SFC FINAL:TOMORROW IN Fr O'Hara Park in Charlestown, Co Mayo, the AIB Connacht football final, between the home club and Corofin, showcases what the province has done best over the past dozen years or so. Despite the western counties' less than imposing presence at All-Ireland level for much of this decade, the club championships provided a competitive outlet at which Connacht excelled.

The trail may have gone cold and it is now four seasons since Galway city club Salthill-Knocknacarra won the All-Ireland but the Andy Merrigan trophy has gone west more often – five times – than it has travelled in any other direction in the past 12 All-Ireland championships.

Neither has this been a special circumstance, the result of an outstanding team in the province such as with Crossmaglen in Ulster.

Five different clubs, three from Galway and two from Mayo, have won the title since 1998.

In all, four Mayo clubs have contested All-Ireland finals since 1994, as many as the entire provinces of Munster or Ulster over that same period.

The period under review is significant because up until 1998 no club from Connacht had ever won the All-Ireland. Yet, as soon as Galway’s Corofin broke the sequence the west appeared liberated and within six months the Galway county team was celebrating taking the Sam Maguire across the Shannon for the first time in 32 years.

Cause and effect or coincidence? “It’s the big imponderable,” according to Connacht council Coaching and Games Development manager John Tobin. “How do you measure psychological impact? How do you measure belief? I think it did have an effect. You could look at Corofin and say, ‘they’re ordinary fellas. We play them all the time’.”

There is no ready formula or equation which allows intercounty fortunes to be extrapolated from club activity and achievement. For every Corofin or Crossmaglen Rangers, harbingers in management and playing personnel of Armagh’s first All-Ireland, there’s a Baltinglass whose achievement in taking a senior All-Ireland to Wicklow for the first time went un-reflected at county level or more recently St Vincent’s and Kilmacud Crokes, whose successive titles couldn’t lift Dublin out of perennial despondency.

Then there’s Kerry and Tyrone, eight All-Irelands between them this decade, and yet just one appearance by either of the county’s clubs in even a final.

Tobin is reluctant to draw conclusions about football in the province on the basis of club activity but believes that the developmental roots of the game are strong.

“You’d have to be happy with the under-age levels. Colleges and minors have been reasonably successful. Roscommon and Galway won minor All-Irelands and Mayo were desperately unlucky not to add to that this year and last year. Standards have been improving in a number of colleges like St Colman’s and St Gerard’s and I’d be looking at the development squad systems and saying that they’ve been very successful.

“There have been huge strides made at under-age levels within the clubs, many of which have fantastic structures in place and it’s behind emerging clubs like Barna and St Michael’s in Galway.”

Ray Silke captained both Corofin and Galway to those landmark achievements nearly 12 years ago. He shares Tobin’s wariness about jumping to conclusions but saw a connection.

“It signified a change in belief for the province. Declan Meehan said afterwards, ‘seeing you win that meant an awful lot.’ I suppose from the psychological point of view a Galway or Connacht team went up and won an All-Ireland against a Dublin side, Erin’s Isle with Keith and Johnny Barr playing for them. It was a significant win and I took a lot from that going into the Galway set-up.

“A rising tide lifts all boats and I imagine Ballina and Crossmolina would have looked at that and thought, ‘we’ve beaten them and there’s not much between us’. Another factor is that they were experienced teams with a core of leaders, like Liam McHale, Ciarán McDonald, David Brady and the Nallens – serious enough teams.”

Crossmolina were sufficiently empowered to beat club football’s brand leaders Nemo Rangers in the 2001 final and Ballina shocked a highly-fancied Portlaoise team four years later. Silke believes that those clubs, like his own, had assembled enough experience to challenge themselves even had Corofin not cleared the way.

“It was a factor but only a factor. It was also history and geography: right place and right time. Ballina and Crossmolina had lost at the All-Ireland stage before winning. Ultimately belief is a factor but you need the players as well. Last season we lost to Kilmacud Crokes because we weren’t good enough.

“It requires a myriad of different factors and combinations coming together to gel at the right time and maybe you’re on a roll. It’s different with say (All-Ireland and Galway hurling champions) Portumna, who are just bloody better than everybody else.”

The timing of an All-Ireland club run is vital and enormously demanding on players, who at the level below county, are asked for sustained commitment, as the county championships bleed into the autumn and winter and if a club is fortunate enough to land a provincial title they must manage a two-month break over Christmas before regrouping and getting their preparation right for an All-Ireland semi-final and the few weeks that separate that from St Patrick’s Day.

There is no reliable formula. Even Connacht’s standard bearers this decade have been different. Caltra, a small-catchment club with a host of Meehan brothers including Galway forward Michael, beat the Kerry champions An Gaeltacht and their own celebrity clan, the Ó Sés.

Salthill had reached the 1991 final and lost to Lavey. Four seasons ago they underwent what Tobin says is a familiar metamorphosis. “They looked poor in the county final,” he says, “but when they emerged they blossomed and played a much more expressive game.”

The team also benefited from the arrival of former Young Player of the Year and All Star Michael Donnellan and although the final on an arctic afternoon was hardly that expressive, Salthill held on to edge out St Gall’s from Belfast.

“Every All-Ireland club success tells a different tale,” says Silke. “Caltra have won only one Galway title and haven’t been out since but it took us the best part of the 90s to win it. It was a fairy tale for Caltra to go all the way and beat An Gaeltacht. Darragh Ó Sé has said it was a defeat that still rankles.

“It was a beautiful success as well because it enhanced the romance of the whole thing, which is why so many people gravitate towards the club championship, why although we’ve had floods all week in Galway we’ll have the hovercraft out pointing towards Charlestown – because we’re always hoping it’ll be our year.”

And in Connacht this decade that hasn’t just been the hope but also the experience.