Team of the Year award is a big 'Deel'
2025 All-Ireland Club IFC winners Crossmolina Deel Rovers will receive the Team of the Year accolade at next Saturday night's Western People Mayo Sports Stars Awards.
A sleeping giant awoke in 2025 with the return to national prominence of Crossmolina Deel Rovers and their crowning as All-Ireland Club intermediate football champions.
After securing Mayo and Connacht intermediate championship titles at the tail-end of 2024, Crossmolina began 2025 by defeating Caragh, the Kildare and Leinster champions, on an icy Saturday in Longford to book a long awaited return to Croke Park for an All-Ireland Club IFC Final showdown with Ballinderry Shamrocks.
Everyone is well aware of the tragic circumstances that caused that game to be delayed until the end of the month – and equally aware of the poignancy when Conor Loftus displayed the heart of a lion to strike home a penalty in the final moments of the game to win the All-Ireland title for Crossmolina. Conor had scored from the penalty spot in his side’s semi-final too.
In beating Ballinderry Shamrocks, the Deel Rovers became the first club in history to win both the All-Ireland senior and intermediate titles which, ironically, the Derry and Ulster champions were also aiming to achieve.
Expectations around Crossmolina grew from hereon, as an injection of highly talented youths – whose ages had rendered them ineligible for the All-Ireland run – into the team saw Crossmolina play some exhilarating football in the 2025 Mayo senior league and championships.
They were only narrowly beaten after extra-time by Breaffy in an exhilarating Division 1 League final and again only after extra-time by Westport in the championship semi-final, as the Deel Rovers captured the imagination of the footballing public in Mayo and across the country.
It was not just the senior team that got everyone talking however, as Crossmolina’s senior-minor ‘Fab Five’ of Dylan Flynn, Sean Óg McGuinness, Josh Moyles, Oisin Deane and Kobe McDonald also helped the club win a first county U18 ‘A’ championship title in 32 years with victory over Westport in the final.
