By Kevin Egan

A strong club scene, a ravenous hunger to get back out on the field after a two-year absence, and the unique and detailed approach of team manager Michael Maher are the key factors that has seen London kick off the 2022 Allianz Football League with three wins from three games, according to vice-captain and centre back Eoin Walsh.

It’s the first time London have won consecutive competitive matches since the 2013 Connacht championship – and even then, there was a semi-final draw with Leitrim in between those victories.

Both their form and confidence is an an upward curve, but Walsh is keeping his feet very much planted on the ground.

“It’s too early to think about promotion, we are living the cliché and taking it game by game, since we have to be absolutely on the money to win any match” is how Walsh described the state of mind in the London camp, while admitting that the players are in very high spirits at the moment.

“We’re not getting carried away, but there’s no doubt that getting the wins has added a real buzz and energy to the camp”.

All logical forecasting suggested that London would struggle this year. After going effectively two years without a competitive game, and with a huge amount of panel turnover, 2022 should have been all about slowly rebuilding under a manager who is officially in his third year, but due to the lack of games, is still quite inexperienced at this level.

As Walsh points out however, Michael Maher doesn’t let his inexperience show whatsoever.

“He’s a savage operator, I was only chatting some of the lads recently and it came up that he didn’t play a huge amount, which is incredible because the level of detail he goes into is remarkable” he says of the Round Towers club man.

“You look at his record with underage and club teams and he gets the most out of players wherever he goes. It’s all about the way he coaches, it’s incredibly technical, very detailed. He takes elements from soccer coaching, elements from basketball, and brings it together in a way that makes it all very applicable on a football field. It’s really bringing guys on a lot”.

Walsh, a native of Moycullen in Galway and no stranger to basketball himself, works as a physiotherapist in the NHS and has done since moving over in 2018. A former underage player with Galway, he initially wasn’t sure if he was going to play football in London, but realises now that he was never going to say goodbye to the sport he loves.

“Growing up, it was just a huge part of our family and my life. Everyone in my family love it, they’re really into it, and there’s a great social aspect to it over here as well, so I’m delighted to be part of it”.

So he started up with club and county, and while his London career has involved a lot of zoom meetings and solo training, last October he was at the heart of St. Kiernan’s winning just their second ever London senior football title. He played centre back on the team that lost out in a very competitive AIB Connacht club quarter-final against Tourlestrane, and going into this year’s Allianz League, he felt that the club scene in the English capital city hinted at the possibility of a good year for the county side.

“The county championship was more open than ever before, the standard was very high. Aside from ourselves, and we would have been considered slightly outside the top four or five contenders, you had Fulham Irish (reigning champions, and St. Kiernan’s county final opponents this year), Tír Chonaill Gaels, Kingdom Kerry Gaels, and North London Shamrocks all in the mix. Then Round Towers were seconds away from knocking us out in this year’s semi-final, until an injury-time goal gave us a one point win. That’s a lot of teams who were playing well”.

“A lot of results through the year were in the balance so the games were good in terms of testing and developing players, and then we went over to play a good Tourlestrane team, six-in-a-row champions in Sligo, and we were happy enough with how we went. You can never know, but using that as a gauge, I thought we would be competitive this year”.

When it came to county football, pandemic restrictions affected London very differently. They followed GAA rules and protocols, but those had been drafted by officials who were working with the Irish government, and were designed to operate within the prevailing Irish context. London also had to consider UK government rules, and in an environment where many players would rely exclusively on public transport.

“We were guided by the UK government and largely followed the rules that were laid down for what they would call Sunday League teams over here. James O’Dowd is our strength and conditioning coach and he was brilliant in giving us programmes that didn’t require equipment” Walsh said.

“Even then, you had all the uncertainty and restrictions around foreign travel, recognition of different types of tests and vaccines, so it was very uncertain whether or not it would happen at all. It’s very hard to keep going with no end goal.

“But then this winter, we were able to go straight from our club season into county training and we were itching to go, you could see it in the players, both the new ones who maybe had been part of the panel for a year or two but never got to play, and the more experienced ones.

“We went over to Ulster for a weekend and we played Down on the Saturday, and the Armagh U-20s on the Sunday, and we felt we were in good shape. But you never know, it wasn’t until the league started that we’d get a proper litmus test."