Fulham boss expects Ballina to ask big questions of Corofin

Lorcan Mulvey wouldn’t be one bit surprised if the championship journey of Ballina Stephenites continues beyond next Saturday’s Connacht Club SFC semi-final clash with Corofin.

Having gotten to see the Mayo champions up close and personal as manager of the Fulham Irish team that took them on in MacHale Park at the weekend, the Cavan native believes the Green and Red can ask some serious questions of the club who landed four All-Ireland senior titles between 2015 and 2020.

Mulvey returned to the ground where he played for London in their Connacht SFC final appearance against Mayo in 2013, and was highly impressed by what he saw of a Ballina side that wasn’t even at full strength.

“We had done a lot of homework on them, we watched a lot of videos, we knew who their trigger men were, who made things happen at the time they needed it, and them players came forward and still did it today even though we knew about it,” admitted the Fulham boss.

Mulvey’s opinion is to be respected; he had the rarity as a London player to be nominated for an All-Star after that historic 2013 campaign in which he scored the goal that gave his team a 1-12 to 0-14 victory over Sligo – the Exiles’ first in the competition since 1977.

“I’d highly rate their conditioning,” he said of Ballina Stephenites, “but there’s also a bit more in them as well.

“I think next week against Corofin is a big test, Corofin have been around the houses, but I wouldn’t rule out Ballina at all and I’d be confident they’d definitely put it up to Corofin and possibly go further,” offered Mulvey.

Fulham Irish were managing to hold their own for most of the first-half and but for some poor shooting might have been closer than 0-5 to 0-2 on the scoreboard after 25-minutes. But two goals not long before half-time set Ballina on their way to what turned out as a very comfortable fifteen points victory.

“It’s very disappointing, the margin obviously being so high. It’s probably an eye-opener for us, of where we need to be if we’re ever to be back on this stage again. We’ve a lot of work to do,” reckoned Lorcan Mulvey.

“In time, I suppose we’ll reflect on a year that’s been a successful one for us, I think we’ve got huge potential in the next couple of years to build on that. A lot of key players are coming back to us from injuries.

“Ballina, you can see their level of conditioning is just that one step above ours. We had opportunities at the start of the game from the dead ball that we didn’t take, which would have kept it a bit tighter. Once we didn’t take those opportunities, Ballina edged forward and edged forward, and then the first goal was a killer.” 

Fulham Irish is one of the youngest GAA clubs in London having only formed in 2006. They made an immediate impact and by winning the county intermediate championship at their first attempt, and then the British championship, pushed Killala hard in the Connacht junior championship.

But the difficulties faced annually by every overseas GAA unit are exemplified by the fact that of the Fulham Irish side that won the club’s first London SFC title as recently as 2017, not one member of the starting team that day was on the field for throw-in against Ballina last Saturday evening. It’s why, says Lorcan Mulvey, there’s great excitement at the recent establishment of a juvenile wing within the club.

“The dream would be that in twenty years’ time, some of those guys would be the stalwarts for your senior team and you wouldn’t be relying on people coming over for a couple of years and then going back. You want that consistency in your club and it’s a huge step in the right direction for us. We’ve more work to do on it.

“In the short term we’ve got to build on the group of players that we have currently and try and win a couple of championships in London.

“The future of the club is bright if we can keep going in the direction we’re going. We’ve got good men behind the scenes who are there night in, night out, trying to do just that,” he added.