St Joseph's look to break new ground in national final
The captains of St Joseph's Secondary School Foxford and Coláiste Ailigh Letterkenny with the match officials ahead of the national semi-final, which St Joseph's won 1-0.
St Joseph’s Secondary School will look to add another FAI Schools national title to their collection tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon when they face Coláiste na Sceilge, Caherciveen in the Minor (under-15) ‘B’ decider.
The Foxford school has already tasted FAI success, having won a Senior (under-19) ‘B’ Boys title in 2019 and a Senior ‘B’ Girls crown in 2023, while the Senior Boys also reached the ‘B’ final in 2023.
The team is made up of players of primarily Straide & Foxford United as well as Conn Rangers, with many representatives from S&F part of the club side that recently reached the quarter-finals of the SFAI U15 Trophy, so the talent of this St Joseph’s team is not in question.
Yet, the school team were in a battle to even get out of Connacht, being second best in their 2-0 defeat to St Brendan’s College, Belmullet in the Connacht Cup group stages. As fate would have it, the two schools would meet again in the provincial final and it looked like St Brendan’s would break the hearts of St Joseph’s when they equalised with five minutes of extra-time remaining. But Jamie Loughney came up with a late winner to seal Connacht glory and coach Sean McLoughlin, who part of a joint-management ticket alongside Mr Philip Ryan, believes that early group stage defeat was a help in the long run.
“I suppose the All-Ireland final appearance wasn't on our radar after that [defeat]”, said Sean. “The reality check in Belmullet brought them back to earth and it illustrated that a Connacht title, not to mind anything else, is very difficult to win.
“I think you can't look past that. You're only looking at can we go and win a Connacht title and that would have been what we'd have been saying.
“I've been involved with lots of teams that were good on paper but didn't win a title and as Brian Clough famously once said, the game is played on grass.” The grass might have been artificial for their national semi-final against Letterkenny’s Coláiste Ailigh, on the Showgrounds astro pitch in Sligo, but that did not deter them as Rory Gruddy scored the only goal of the game to book their place in the final. But the goal did not tell the full story, which saw a lengthy delay before half-time due to a serious injury for one of the Letterkenny players.
“It probably affected their lads a little bit more than ours, I don't know, but we got in, had only about 15 minutes to play of the remainder of the first half and then it was nil all at half-time,” said Sean, who is caretaker at the school.
“Both teams left the pitch and went back to the dressing rooms and just inside there you're just saying to them, these are the curveballs that gets thrown at you along a journey like we're on.
“There's different stuff that might happen. Regrettably it did happen that day, something else might happen the next day, but whatever is thrown at us, you'd like to think that we could respond in a good way to it.
“There's no magic formula. All we're ever trying to do is be the most competitive and the best version of ourselves that we can be. When we do that, we'll accept whatever results comes our way then. We always talk about leave here and say, I've done my best to ignore regrets and whatever happens, happens.”
Should this young group go on to win the Minor ‘B’ final, who’s to say it will not lead to further success when these players become eligible for senior level. But all focus will be on Wedensday’s final against their Kerry opponents, who had matters more straightforward in their semi-final (4-0 against Ard Scoil Chiaráin Naofa, Clara), and the management duo thanked the school for all their help in assisting them in any way possible on their journey.
“I'd imagine with Kerry, anything they do, they do it fairly well. I'm sure there are a cohort people there that love their soccer and they're being facilitated in a school. They have obviously a good team. They won their semi-final comprehensively, 4-0. That says something in itself. But any team, be them from Kerry or Kilkenny, any team in an All-Ireland final is decent. They have to be able to get there.
“You can only win the competition in front of you and for those lads to win a national title so early in their time here in the school is a new ground being broken.
“Management has been great in the school to facilitate over the years a combination of the academic and outside of the classroom activity, which allows stuff like what's happening next Wednesday to happen. “ Principal Daire McManamon also paid tribute to the outstanding work Straide & Foxford United and Conn Rangers have done with the players over the years and wsaid the school is very proud of what this group has achieved.
“You're only as good as the clubs that have sent the lads or the girls in and in our case, we're very lucky with Conn Rangers and SNF. They're the two feeder clubs for these lads. They've obviously done an awful lot of work with them over the past number of years.
While they come to school and the school tries to do their best for them, you're to be grateful really for all the work that the clubs have done really to get to that far.
“We are very lucky that there's two very proud and very active clubs there in the area.
The lads themselves that are a great bunch of fellas in the classroom, out of the classroom. They'll give it full concentration and commitment to it.
"It'll be great for the school [if they won], it’s great for the community, for the clubs and for the lads themselves and their families. You're very obviously proud of every team that leaves. You just want them to represent themselves, whether it's the first round or whether it's the final, you want them to represent their school the right way. You want them to do it with respect and pride and give it their best in terms of hard work and so on.
“Every team that goes out, you're proud of them as they leave because you would hope that they represent the school through the values that we, as a school, would have.
“I think when they do that, the results may follow or may not follow, but either way, I suppose you're proud of them. The school is proud of them as a result of that.”
