Coláiste Mhuire buzzing ahead of first ever Hogan Cup Final

By John Harrington

A big Westmeath crowd is expected in Croke Park tomorrow to roar on Coláiste Mhuire in the school’s first ever Masita GAA All Ireland Post Primary Schools Senior A (Hogan Cup) Final.

11 clubs are represented in the Mullingar school’s panel and the exciting brand of football they’ve played to get to Croke Park has captured the imagination of GAA supporters in the Lake County.

“There’s a serious buzz,” says Coláiste Mhuire team mentor, Dean McNicholas. “I suppose it's not often teams in Westmeath get to play an All-Ireland Final, particularly in Croke Park so there is huge interest in the community.

“A special train has been organised to go to Dublin directly from here on the day so we’re expecting a big crowd with a lot of youngsters going to support their friends and people from all the various clubs going as well.

“I suppose anyone with a GAA connection that's around is talking about it. So there's huge excitement and rightly so.

“Like a lot of schools now we have our ‘ultras’ who support the teams and are very noisy and enthusiastic. It's great for, I suppose, the younger lads to be able to look up to these lads and see what hard work and a couple of years of dedication does.

“We had gone four years without winning a game at senior level so there were hard years there, no doubt, but a massive amount of work has gone in and it's exciting now at this stage.”

It’s a testament to that hard work being done by the GAA coaches in the school that Coláiste Mhuire have won back-to-back Brother Bosco Cups (Leinster Senior A Football) for the first time in the school’s history.

Last year’s success probably came a little earlier than expected because it was achieved with such a relatively young team, many of whom are involved again this year.

Beaten by St. Colman’s, Claremorris in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final, the lessons learned from that painful experience were put to good use in this year’s semi-final when they beat highly rated Ulster champions, Abbey CBS, after extra-time.

“We learned a massive amount from losing last year’s semi-final,” says McNicholas.

“Truth be told, I think when we got to that All-Ireland semi-final, I think a lot of eyes were on the opportunity to try and play in Croke Park in an All-Ireland final and we might have taken the eye off the ball a little bit in the lead-up to that, but, to be fair to the lads, we had a couple of lads in hospital that week with sicknesses, so it was hard to give a reflection of where we thought we were.

“We learned from it and we definitely changed a lot in terms of our preparation and we were just focused on that All-Ireland semi-final this year. We knew going up against the Ulster Champions that nothing was going to be easy and it proved to be that.”

There’s no shortage of very talented individuals in this Coláiste Mhuire team.

Will Scahill is one of the most highly rated young forwards in the country and he’s ably assisted in attack by other clinical finishers like Stephen McWade, Michael Weir, and Finn Higgins.

Cristóir Ormsby and Rory O’Brien give them a strong platform in the middle third and defenders like Michael Moloney, Seán Byrne, and Ty Masterson are all very resolute at the back.

But what makes Coláiste Mhuire such a formidable side is they marry that physical talent with a steely mental strength that sees them consistently find a way to come out on the right side of tough battles such as that All-Ireland semi-final against Abbey CBS and the Leinster quarter-final against a very talented St. Pat’s, Navan, both of which were won after extra-time.

“Yeah, and I'd even go as far back as the Leinster final of last year, that went to extra time as well,” says McNicholas.

“I suppose the common thing across all three of them games is we were chasing them games with five or six minutes to go. We were behind in all.

“We got a score with maybe 15 seconds left in the Leinster final last year.

“Against St. Pat's of Navan we were three down with maybe five or six to play. And, yeah, Abbey, we were chasing the game a full time and then even at half time of extra time, we were three down.

“So, look, we'd like to think that that's after showing a lot of resilience within the team and I suppose that's been built over the years.”

Post-Primary schools football and hurling is generally a good barometer of the future health of the game in a county or province.

Encouragingly for Leinster GAA, the standard in the province was exceptionally high this year and it’ll be interesting to whether that translates to the senior inter-county game a few years hence.

“I think that Leinster we won this year was a very hard Leinster to win if you just look at the pack that we came through,” says McNicholas.

“Even in our second game in the group against Dunboyne, we were five down. Then we went on to play Rochfortbridge in a local derby and we were losing in that game as well.

"We were losing against St. Pat's of Navan, losing a half-time against Naas, and then the Leinster final, we were down a point a half-time.

“So, every single game we've played this year, we faced a test. That’s probably what made this year’s Leinster success all the sweeter.

“There’s huge work going on in Westmeath clubs at the moment and the standard of footballer that we're getting in first year coming in is a lot higher than maybe years gone by.

“You'd like to think that it'll bode well for Westmeath in the minor and under-20 competitions this year, the fact that we're after going back-to-back in Leinster.

“The Leinster Final this year was a huge occasion for Westmeath football with two Westmeath schools in it, ourselves and Marist, and you’d like to think that football is strong at the moment in Westmeath and in years to come hopefully a lot of these lads will go on and represent the county at the senior level.”

Coláiste Mhuire are the first Westmeath school to reach a Hogan Cup Final since Carmelite College, Moate last won it in 1981.

Indeed, Carmelite College Moate are the only school from the county to ever win the competition, so what would it mean to all involved with Coláiste Mhuire if they could also have their name etched on the Cup?

“It'd be huge,” says McNicholas. “It'd be huge for everyone involved, school, parents, family, young lads in the school, just massive.

“But I suppose we're trying to focus as best we can on the game and we're under no illusions that we face a massive 60 minutes ahead of us or extra time or whatever amount of minutes it is.

“We'll be going in as underdogs into it but we'd like to think that if we're able to perform to our ability that we'll be hopefully a match for Tralee.”

Tuesday, March 17

Masita All-Ireland PPS Hogan Cup (Senior A Football) Final

Coláiste Mhuire, Mullingar v Tralee CBS, Croke Park, 3pm