Gaels all geared up for their shot at the big time

Eastern Gaels had an unblemished 2024 up until the semi-finals of the junior championship. They hadn’t lost a single game all year, which helped them win a first ever Mayo SFL (Division 3) title. And yet they’ve already bettered last year’s run despite winning just one of their three group matches in this season’s championship.

Achill should have beaten Eastern Gaels in the very first round (manager Paul Hickey’s words, not mine) but the game ended all-square while Shrule-Glencorrib were less forgiving and did inflict defeat upon Gaels in Round 3, and yet Achill finished bottom of the group while the table-topping Shrule boys were gone from the championship by the quarter-final stage.

But here Eastern Gaels are still standing, preparing for a first ever appearance in the Mayo Junior Football Championship final after 41 years of trying.

“We learned a lot from last year when we flew through the group stages of the championship. We had kind of peaked before we got to the quarter-final, semi-final, whereas this year we’ve just managed it that small bit differently,” explains Paul Hickey, who’s in his third season in charge of the rural club that draws from the Brickens, Bekan and Logboy areas.

He has guided the team to a semi-final each year.

“The heartbreak of losing to Lahardane in our first year and last year against Bonniconlon, when we went in as favourites, it really stung and it helped us to come back and drive on that small bit more.

“What we learned was that you do need a panel. If you don’t have a panel you’re not going to get anywhere close to a county final. Everyone has injuries and you have to have that little bit of strength in depth. And we’ve had to use it.” 

Bonniconlon were more and more becoming a lot of people’s favourites to win the McDonnell Cup, particularly having ran Cill Chomáin so close in last year’s drawn and replayed junior finals – with Cill Chomáin since proving their worth as intermediate quarter-finalists in 2025. And things seemed to be coming together nicely again for Nobby McLoughlin’s team, particularly when they travelled to Tourmakeady and took out the hosts at the quarter-final stage to set-up yet another last four showdown with Eastern Gaels.

“To get beaten in the semi-final last year when we were favourites was hard, it was very, very tough. We used that coming in against Bonniconlon this year,” admits Hickey whose team led from pillar to post in what ended as a 1-11 to 0-11 win.

Revenge tasted sweet.

“We knew we hadn’t played well in the championship this year up until that and we probably still haven’t hit the heights of last year, but that’s championship. We’ve lost a game already, we’ve drawn a game, but we’re in a county final, so it’s just about getting the balance right and I think we’ve got it right up to now. 

“We enjoyed that Sunday night after the Bonniconlon game. It was a great relief for us to be honest, to get to that pinnacle. We’d never been there before. And the lads deserved to have their few pints.

“There was great emotion, when you see people coming onto the pitch, 50, 60, 70-year-olds in floods of tears, it means an awful lot to the parish.

“We’ll let the emotion run through the club, they’ll decorate the villages, Brickens, Bekan, Logboy, but we’ll knuckle down, we’ll keep ourselves to ourselves, because we’ve a lot of work to do to get ready for Kiltimagh,” he warned.

Eastern Gaels, whose average squad age is just 22, handed Kiltimagh a sixteen points hiding in the East Mayo junior championship at the beginning of the year and again had the upper-hand, albeit by a smaller margin, when they met in Division 3. But for a club founded in 1984 and for whom this is their first county final proper, Paul Hickey knows that the game next Sunday is one that could easily take on a life all of its own.

“Kiltimagh have that bit of heritage, they’ve been senior, intermediate, they’ve played in All-Irelands, so it’s going to be a huge battle. There’s going to be a kick of the ball between us, absolutely no doubt about it.

“We’re very much going in as the underdog and deservedly so because Kiltimagh are at it a long, long time and Mick (Regan, manager) has done an awful lot of good work since he’s gone in there, because it wasn’t easy. They had a small lull and he has brought them back to where they want to be. It’ll be a huge battle on the day.

“We’re 41 years trying to get out. We’re finally getting our chance and we’re just going to have to try and take it with two hands because if we don’t, who knows when you’ll be back in a county final. It took us eighteen years [to get] from one county semi-final to our next.”