McHale: ‘It’s up there as a real highlight of my career’

Few competitions within the GAA are as divisive as the college competitions, and Wednesday night’s Sigerson Cup in Croke Park summed that up perfectly.

There are those who cannot understand why this competition is allowed to take place at a time when it disrupts the start of the intercounty season, then there are those who cannot understand why Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cup games don’t capture the imagination of the general public to a much wider degree, given the level of talent on show.

Fewer than 1,000 supporters were at GAA headquarters for the meeting of UL and UCC, and still the action on the field was relentless. 0-17 to 1-11 might not be a massive score in modern football, but it took heroic displays from goalkeepers Tristan O’Callaghan and Austin Murphy to keep it down to just one green flag – on another day, there could well have been half a dozen or more.

UL full forward Cian McHale spurned one of those chances, but the Moy Davitts and Mayo player more than made up for it with five points, three from play, to help his side make history by becoming the first new winner of this famous trophy since Aidan O’Shea and Jason Doherty helped TUD (formerly DIT) to victory in Athlone 13 years ago.

“It’s unbelievable to be part of a first Sigerson title for UL,” McHale told the Western People.

“It was very similar to a lot of the games we've actually played this year. We played DCU in the second round, that was very frantic. Then there was Maynooth and Queens in the quarter and semi-finals, they were pure mad games as well, they both went into extra-time.

“That's the joy of Sigerson, lads are just going out and playing their own football. In fairness to David [Power, manager], he lets us play that way and it's unbelievable to be part of it”.

That invites the question – in a world where intercounty preparation has reached unprecedented levels, is this the best chance supporters will get to see talented young players just operate off instinct, playing what they see?

“There's a few match-ups we go after and everything like that but David keeps it really simple,” McHale said.

“If we train with Mayo on a Saturday or Sunday, he gives us the evening off on the Monday but we still go down and still support the lads who are training, it’s not that the whole panel are on county squads or anything like that. So there is a really good bond between the whole group but no, you’re not training for every possible set play and every possible scenario, there isn’t time to do that.

“There is county lads, obviously, and then there's lads who are just really good footballers and there was some of them who came off the bench today and it was absolutely brilliant. Like, they pushed us on. Daithí Hogan from Tipperary just came on in every game and tapped over a point or two. Ciarán [Collins] got the start today and he got another few points as well.” 

There was a degree of pressure on this UL group in what was widely perceived as one of the most open Sigerson competitions in recent memory. Unlike some of the superstar teams over the past decade, this was an event where as many as eight or 10 of the 16 participating colleges felt that they were in with a real shout.

As Division One league champions, UL were the closest thing to favourites before a ball was kicked and a big win over DCU early on, with McHale (0-5), Conal Dawson (0-5) and Frank Irwin (0-3) scoring well in that game, cemented that status.

“Our name definitely wasn't on that trophy after the two extra times!” exclaimed McHale on Wednesday night.

“We were favourites going into most games but definitely not today I'd say, because we played well in patches in other games. We knew we needed to play in a longer stretch today and I think we got that, around maybe 40 minutes, which was enough.” And so to the question that will mean the most to most Western People readers today – does he feel that he, and the rest of the substantial Mayo contingent on this UL team, are in a better position going into the meat of the 2026 intercounty campaign?

“We're not training so I don't know how happy Andy [Moran] will be but, yeah, we're delighted playing games!” he joked, before suggesting that across the board, players will have a spring in their step going into the rest of the year.

“You're always hoping to play for Mayo from when you’re a young lad and I think this competition's great to help you get ready for that. Andy has been really supportive to all of us, you can tell by the amount of Mayo lads on the UL squad.

“This is a brilliant competition and every time you play for Mayo you want to push on so yeah, hopefully I do that a bit more on the back of this.

“It feels great to be part of it, it’s up there as a real highlight of my career. Personally, I've lost two county finals with the club so it's finally nice to win something, and doing it in Croke Park is special as well. That's what I'm thinking at the moment.”