By John Harrington

Here’s an early contender for understatement of the year – Conor Laverty is a busy man.

He’s the full-time GAA development officer in Trinity College, a sheep-farmer, the Down U-20 football team manager, a father of five boys under the age of 10, and still a key player for the Kilcoo football team that will play St. Finbarrs in Saturday’s AIB All-Ireland Club SFC semi-final.

You suggest to him that his desire to still play senior club football at the age of 36 is because it’s a release from all the other demands in his life, but Laverty quickly corrects you.

“No, farming is where I am sort of released from it,” he says. "I would say that football is serious.

“You love doing it and all, but it still brings pressure when you're playing. You still think about it every minute of every day, where when you get to the farm it takes your mind off and you're able to focus on something else.

“Should it be playing or coaching, you'd be thinking about football an awful lot. But I do like getting that release of going to the farm or doing something with the boys or the family and having that switching off time and release away from it.

“But then again, whenever doing something with the boys they're asking a million questions about football. So there's no real switching off from it because when you ask the family what they want to do the boys will say we'll go to the field for a kick-about. So that's just the way it is at home.”

Laverty’s five boys are Setanta (10), Conleith (7), Conor Óg (6), Fiachra (3) and Cahair (four months).

It’s too early to tell with Cahair just yet, but the four others are all football mad. Kilcoo must be delighted with Laverty’s one-man drive to ensure the club’s future is in safe hands?

“Aye, there's a bit of a running joke because the Branigan boys have six or seven boys between them. All the wee boys are best friends as well which is great to see.

“Even after the Ulster Final, Aidan and my wee boys who are in nursery together got to lift the cup because they're great wee friends. It's just great to see and they love it.

“They absolutely live for getting to the pitch or the farm. They don't have much other interests.

“I think that's the key difference with the club and county, where you're playing with boys who you went to primary school and have been friends with since you were four years of age .

“Even boys you're not related to feel like a brother or best friend to you. That's the one thing about the club championship is that real tightness of teams and that togetherness is unbreakable.”

Kilcoo have now won a remarkable 10 Down senior football championships and two Ulster championships in the last 13 years, but Laverty remembers a time when such riches were unthinkable.

He’s been playing senior football with Kilcoo since 2002, and in the early days it took a lot less than Ulster titles to sate their ambition.

“In 2003 we won our first Division 1 league and there were grown men crying that day,” he says.

“There's lads playing on this team now whose dads were playing that day.

"A lot of work went into getting Kilcoo into Division 1. We'd been in the lower divisions for years and it was '99 when we came into Division 1 for the first time.

“There was serious work that went in. To make the breakthrough and realise that you could compete with the top teams in Down...It (2003 Division 1 League title win) was in Newcastle that day against Castlewellan.

“After the game was something from dreams, the pitch was covered with people. It was a building block on our journey to where we are today.

“We just wanted to win one championship. Honestly now, that was the dream to win one Down senior championship. That is where we were at and we would have anything to get there. Then as you progress, you reset your ambitions and reset your goals.”

Kilcoo’s first major job of work was to break Mayobridge’s stronghold on the Down football championship. After that, it took some time to emerge from Crossmaglen’s shadow and finally win an Ulster senior football championship at the eight attempt.

“Mayobridge were very strong at that stage in Down, they won five championships in a row and were extremely unlucky not to win an Ulster,” says Laverty.

“We got some heavy defeats from them. But I suppose it's in them defeats that you learn from the experiences.

"We had some titanic battles with Cross. That was a sign that we could compete at the top level whenever we were able to match them. Sometimes we didn't come at the right end of the victory but there was a good respect between the two clubs. And because both sets of players left everything on the field and that's why they were such intriguing bottles.

“We were knocking at the door in Ulster and we just couldn't make that breakthrough. I think that heartbreak and resilience to keep going back to the well has stood us well as a team. Because it would have been easy just to give up hope.

“We've been lucky over this past number of years to be successful in Ulster. Every game in Ulster is an absolute battle. Regardless of score lines you know after the game that you've been in a battle. There's no bad teams in Ulster, we were just delighted to come out with a victory.”

You suggest to Laverty that the ambition for this Kilcoo team must be to cement their legacy by winning an All-Ireland title, but he quickly shoots it down by firmly saying they have an All-Ireland semi-final on Saturday and that’s as far as the thinking goes.

He’s as deadly serious about his football as he ever was, but some things have changed, now he shares the obsession with the next generation of Lavertys.

“It's just the same as it always was, sticking to the same routine, but it's a wee different now that we have the boys,” he says.

“Whenever you're leaving the house the boys like to go to games and that. Probably more now than ever it's more of maybe a family thing.

"It's great to see the boys after the game and it's great for the lads to see the families after the game. For me, it's the enjoyment it gives them.

“To see the wee lads playing before or after the match and the smiles on their faces.

“I think that's the one thing that has changed for me. Them wee lads create memories for them that they'll never forget.”