Galway man D'Arcy hoping for a long winter with Ballyboden St Enda's

​By Paul Keane

Cein D'Arcy jetted out to the south of Spain late last month for the wedding of his Galway football teammate Johnny Heaney.

They were colleagues at Croke Park in late June, when an All-Ireland SFC quarter-final tie against Meath, that the Connacht champions were expected to win, went against them.

Perhaps on a quiet moment over the wedding weekend in Nerja, an hour or so up the coast from Malaga, they chatted about that painful afternoon.

Or maybe they went a little further back, to 2020, when they were the only two Galway players to start every single game of that season's Covid interrupted Allianz League campaign.

They both started the Connacht final that 2020 season too but, for D'Arcy, it was his last game in a Galway jersey until 2024. By then, he was a Ballyboden St Enda's player in Dublin and he credits much of his second coming, and the rekindling of his best form, with his 2023 switch to south Dublin.

"I have to credit the environment, credit the group here," said D'Arcy, who is currently participating in the AIB Leinster club SFC after helping 'Boden claim a fifth Dublin title last month.

"The lads unlock that within you. You can leverage off their behaviours and what they're doing. And you try to go beyond that again. So it's been a revelation for me.

"I was developed and nurtured in Caherlistrane, and in Galway, so they deserve so much credit. It's not like I came with bad football (behind me). I'd probably just lost my way a little bit as a man. When I came in here with these lads they had me turning that corner and I really appreciate that."

D'Arcy's county colleague, Shane Walsh, set the template a couple of seasons back for Galway players winning Dublin, Leinster and All-Ireland titles, doing so with Kilmacud Crokes. Perhaps that is a journey D'Arcy will now go on himself.

It's a case of so far, so good having struck the crucial goal in the county final that helped 'Boden see off Na Fianna, a week before Heaney's wedding. He lined out again last Sunday in Wexford when the visitors turned in a powerful second-half performance to see off Castletown by nine points in a provincial quarter-final.

Next up for 'Boden is a Leinster semi-final against Tullamore, in Tullamore, on Saturday week.

So did he watch Walsh and that Crokes team with envy?

"I'd envy him when I'm at Loughgeorge in December, running through the wet and the rain with Galway," smiled D'Arcy, referencing pre-season with Padraic Joyce's county panel.

"Mind you, what we trained in for the last week was just as bad as any of that. Ah look, the journeys are special when you're with the club, so you do envy them from that perspective. The other side of it is that when you're in your pre-season with Galway, you're anticipating the year ahead and building towards that, so that has its own novelty and its own charm, so you look forward to that too."

D'Arcy probably should be a little jaded at this stage of the season but he comes across as energised and desperate to keep Ballyboden's winning run going.

When the wedding celebrations were over, for example, he returned immediately and immersed himself in the preparations for the provincial championship.

"The day I got back, on the Monday, we were back into training again," said the versatile midfielder. "We realised we had an opportunity, because we had the four-week break (after the county final), to give it a good lash and we trained hard. Those third and fourth weeks we trained hard! I was delighted to get back into it because the journey is not over. That's something we were stressing after the county final as well."

D'Arcy isn't the only non-Dubliner in Cavan native Eamon O'Reilly's Ballyboden group. Antrim footballer Peter Healy, who played a central role in the team's first goal last Sunday, 2022 Kerry All-Ireland SFC medallist Pa Warren and ex-Kingdom U-20 Michael O'Gara all featured in the win over Castletown too.

"The roots are very rural," said D'Arcy of the club. "It's built up with men from Mayo, men from Galway, people from down the country."

They produced a special second-half performance in the southeast to overwhelm a talented Castletown team. Summer football or winter football, it doesn't seem to bother Ballyboden.

"It's a power-based game when you're playing in these conditions at this time of the year," said D'Arcy. "Those lads are powerful, they can move their legs, they can get it pumping. As I say, there's been an awful lot of work done from a fitness perspective so when it comes down to that aspect, these lads won't be found wanting. It's just, can you execute the basics well, and consistently, in these conditions? That's the big thing."

They could yet finish the year on the most pristine surface of them all, at Croke Park, as the Leinster final is scheduled to be played there on December 6.

"We won't look that far ahead," insisted D'Arcy, eyeing their semi-final against a talented and in-form Tullamore. "We'll take it step by step, a game at a time. I know Stephen Rochford is in with Tullamore so he'll have a few tricks up his sleeve. That's the next job and we won't look any further than the next game."