Captain Conor hails character of squad with glory in its sights

Conor Moriarty, along with his fellow Ballaghaderreen clubmen, will be hoping to join the St Nathy’s alumni who have All-Ireland Post-Primary School winners medals in their possession, when they face Cnoc Mhuire of Granard this Saturday afternoon.

Joseph McCann, Stephen Drake, Derek Moran, Michael Solan, Barry Regan, Oliver Towey, Sean Mangan, John Mitchell, Kenneth Duffy and a certain Andrew Moran (whatever happened to him?) all played on that fateful day on April 16, 2000, when St Nathy’s last captured the Paddy Drummond Cup.

For the St Nathy’s College captain, having achieved the goal of winning a Connacht senior ‘B’ title last month, the group are now somewhat in bonus territory, but are targeting a win nonetheless.

“The Connacht final, that was the goal, to try and win that and anything after was a positive, so to be in the final now, we want to try and win it,” said Moriarty, a former Mayo minor.

Moriarty, along with much of this panel, won a Connacht juvenile title back in 2022. It was a bittersweet year for the school as the senior side was beaten in the Connacht senior ‘B’ final – but St Nathy’s were safe in the knowledge another good group was coming through.

“We won the Connacht juvenile back there when we were in second year and from that team on we kind of said as a group that if we all did TY we'd have a seriously good team in Leaving Cert. We were lucky that everyone went and did it and it brought us closer together and just made us want to win it even more.” 

Schools football brings the unique element of playing with players from other clubs who will be rivals more often than not after secondary school, like Conor and his Ballagh’ buddies playing alongside the Kilmovee quartet of Declan Duffy, Patick Regan, Oran Frain and Liam Boyle.

For St Nathy’s, that is extended to inter-county as teammates Dean Casey and James Cassidy have also played for the Roscommon minors also.

“We all pride ourselves on our club, that's where we've come from. So to represent our club, that's the main thing. We’re hoping to try and do as best as we can for them, and it just creates a great buzz from all the clubs.

“It's a dream to be in an All-Ireland final with your club or your county, but it's really sweet to do it with schoolmates, it's what you want to be doing with them. You don't want to be in class, you want to be out playing football on a pitch!

“You’ve got to enjoy it while it's there because I’ve been lucky to play against the Roscommon lads in a Connacht final there a year or two ago so to be able to play with them, it's really good, it's enjoyable.” 

Moriarty added: “We've had some really good trips out and some really tough games that have really shaped us and even some training sessions going back. We trained over the Christmas and those are the ones that really make a team because most teams won't come out and train over the Christmas, but we got lots of lads out. Those sprints after Stephen’s Day, after Christmas Day, those are the ones that build a good team.

“It's a great privilege to captain. They're a great group of lads to be fair to them. It couldn't be an easier group to captain as well because they're all really hard workers and they all turn up and they don't give me too much grief now to be fair.

“We're really lucky to have some really good forwards. It takes off the pressure, no one's having to carry a big burden. Even the two midfielders, Oran [Frain] and Sean [Buckley], are well able to kick a score. There's no pressure on you, so it nearly frees you up to try something different, to try and kick that score and everyone backs you to kick it.

“We've come up against some really good defenders but we've seem to just figure out a way to break them down. Sometimes it's slower, sometimes it's fast build up, and it's been very good.” 

If Moriarty and co. were able to bring an All-Ireland back to St Nathy’s, what would it mean?

“It'd be massive. To win in All-Ireland, it’s the stuff of dreams. To be able to get over the line, it'd be very good.

“It’s not going to be easy, and we have to turn up on the day, try and perform as best as we can and hopefully that'll be enough for us.”