Tom Lahiff of St Judes ahead of Sunday’s Go-Ahead Dublin Senior Football Club Championship final taking place in Parnell Park in Dublin.
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By John Harrington
The honesty of endeavour of the St Jude’s senior footballers for more than 10 years now has been hugely impressive.
They’ve consistently reached the semi-finals of the Dublin SFC during that period, with the closest they came to winning their maiden championship in that period being Final defeats to Ballyboden St. Enda’s in 2009 and Kilmacud Crokes in 2018.
The general consensus during that time has long been that they’re a very solid outfit, but lack that little bit of magic you need to get over the line.
Their players have never lost faith, though. According to Dublin panelist, Tom Lahiff, the reason so many of them have kept their shoulder to the wheel for so long is because they believe they have what it takes to win the club’s first ever Dublin SFC title.
“I've been on the team for eight years and in those eight years this will be the second final and nearly the rest were semi-finals,” said Lahiff.
“We have been consistently in the top four in the last number of years but there’s no medals for top four so it's just trying to get over that final hurdle and finally just pick up a bit of silverware.
“I think the biggest thing is the squad itself in the last couple of years knows there's a championship in us. Lads who may have been thinking about retirement have hung around. Anyone who is in the squad at the moment is there on merit because they can contribute.
“They would be so annoyed if they packed it in and that was the year that we won it. So I think it was that feeling that there's a championship in us that lads wanted to hang on just in case it did come around.
“As you said, we've just been building. With our last two managements it's sort of been two three-year cycles. And each year we've been building on stuff that has let us down in previous years.
“This year now has been six years in the making and we really feel that if we can put in a good performance and play the way we've been playing then there's no reason that we can't get over the line this year.”
Tom Lahiff of St Jude's during the Go Ahead Dublin County Senior Club Football Championship Semi-Final match between St Jude's and Lucan Sarsfields at Parnell Park in Dublin.
St. Jude’s supporters are sourcing encouragement from the fact that their team are the highest scoring so far this year in this year’s the Go Ahead Dublin SFC.
They’ve long had a reputation for being a defensively solid team first and foremost, but one who also lacked a real cutting edge in attack.
It’s something they’ve worked hard to develop this year, because they were quite aware it was the major flaw in their make-up.
“Yeah, exactly,” says Lahiff. “We were always known for having a mean defence. We might only concede eight or nine scores but in them big championship games we were never putting up enough. We were only ever getting 10 or 11 points, we never scored 1-15 or 1-16 type of thing.
“So, for the last two seasons that's what we've been working on. We know our defence is solid and if we have that backbone there and just built on the forwards then we could try and pick up a championship.
“So that's sort of what we've been working on this year, just our attacking play and different styles.
“I'd say we're one of the top scoring teams in the championship this year which is something that we hadn't achieved in the last ten years, I'd say.
“If you look at the winners of the last couple of years they've always been the team that scored the most so that was something we looked at this year, to see if we could hold onto that mean defence but also build on our attack and get our scoring averages up.”
David Mannix of St Jude's in action against Colm Walsh of Lucan Sarsfields during the Go Ahead Dublin County Senior Club Football Championship Semi-Final match between St Jude's and Lucan Sarsfields at Parnell Park in Dublin.
Two non-native Dubliners have been key to St. Judes’ impressive attacking displays this year.
Kerry native David Mannix and former Cork footballer, Niall Coakley, have been responsible for a big chunk of their team’s scoring.
Recruiting players from outside has been a policy for St. Judes, but they’re more than happy that some good ones have joined their club in recent years.
“We'd never go out and look for players or anything like that,” says Lahiff. “What happens is that someone joins and moves to Dublin for work reasons and they set up in Templeogue or near enough and they usually just potter up and look to join the team.
“If they bought into what we're doing, our culture and values and are willing to put the head down and work as much as anybody else then they're given a fair crack of it.
“Obviously Dave has been a great addition to us this year. Both from frees and from play. So that was something we didn't have in previous years. He's definitely been a huge addition.
“For anyone who comes in, we don't see them as the country lads or whatever. It's one team.
“They've all bought in. Dave and the other couple of lads, like, Pat Spillane has been another good addition this year, Jack McGuire at full-back has tigtened things up even more. They've all just come in off their own merit and have done well and that's how they've gotten into the team.”
