By John Harrington

Saturday’s Masita Post Primary Schools Paddy Buggy Cup (SH ‘B’) Final between St. Francis College Rochestown and Claregalway College will be a real clash of new versus long established.

St. Francis College Rochestown has been teaching children since the year the GAA was formed in 1884, whereas Claregalway College only opened their gates for the first time in 2013 to service a rapidly growing population in their corner of Galway.

They added another year of first year students in each of the following six years and built up the school’s facilities in tandem to cater for the growing numbers.

“We’ve added 200 students a year since 2014,” says Claregalway College Vice-Principal and former Galway hurler, Cyril Donnellan.

“We now have 1200 pupils and are at full capacity. There are number of strong feeder clubs in the area in both football and hurling, such as Turloughmore and Carnmore in the hurling and Claregalway in the football. We've a number of other clubs too that are also contributing very strongly to us.

“Claregalway have won a Feile All-Ireland football Final in the last few years and Turloughmore have won a Feile Hurling All-Ireland so on the team we have Feile winners in both codes.

“They're a good group of lads and very determined. A number of them are feeding in to Galway U-17 teams now and we have former pupils that are in both Galway senior hurling and football panels.

“It's very encouraging to see that and I suppose it’s a measurement of the work that's being put into the clubs and the school.”

Encouraging participation in Gaelic games has been a big part of the ethos of the school since it was founded.

Former All-Ireland winner and All-Star, Donnellan, is one of just a number of men and women on the staff who have hurled or played football at the highest level, so there’s never a shortage of teachers to coach teams.

“It's a sporting school,” he says. “The staff is young and energetic. From that we see the number of teams that are going out every evening and it can be a challenge to book a pitch and get a patch of grass to do a bit of training.

“Our principal who has been there since the start would have tried to lay the footprint of what type of school we wanted to be and we're seeing the fruits of the sporting side of it at the minute.

“There was a great buzz when the girls were competing the All-Ireland series in Ladies Football and soccer and now it’s a chance for the lads to portray themselves in a similarly positive light. There’s a brilliant buzz in the whole community and it’s great to see.”

There’s a similar passion for Gaelic games down in St. Francis College Rochestown which Alan Cadogan is only too happy to facilitate.

He’s a past pupil himself and only lives a couple of minutes down the road so the College has always played a big part in his life.

“There’s a strong tradition of both hurling and football in the school,” says Cadogan. “When I started there was about 350 students there and now we're up to around 730.

“We wouldn't have played 'A' Harty when I started there, we probably played 'C' hurling and football. But when I was coming to the end of my time the school was getting really established in both codes and in 2015 we reached both the hurling and football ‘A’ Finals, the Corn Ui Mhuiri and Harty Cup.

“We were beaten in them, but, from a history point of view I don't know if any other school has reached both 'A' Finals in Munster in the same year. We had really good teams back then and reaching an All-Ireland Final now this year is really important to us as a school too.”

Cadogan is more used spending time between the white lines rather outside them, but has relished the opportunity to develop himself as a coach through his involvement with school teams.

“I enjoy the coaching because you see things from a different side,” he says. “All my life I've been viewing it from a player's point of view but you take a step back then and really enjoy the coaching with the school.

“You have to know your audience too, these lads are 16, 17, 18 and are being pulled left, right and centre between clubs, inter-county minor and U-20 panels.

So it's just about getting a bit of a buy-in from them. We've a panel of 26 and they've a lot of different dynamics going on in their life. We got going at the start of November and after a couple of wins the players could see what we were trying to do as management and they really started buying into it then.

“You don't have access to them all the time because they're playing for other teams, but when we have they've been excellent and I've really enjoyed helping them maximise their full potential.”

Both teams are sprinkled with players who have already represented their county and both like to play a very attacking brand of hurling, so all the ingredients are there for what should be a great All-Ireland Final.

Cadogan isn’t sure what to expect from Rochestown’s Galway opponents, but he knows the opposition will be just as much in the dark about his charges and that it’s all likely to come down to whichever team can best rise to the occasion.

“It's very hard to know what we'll be up against, they're from one side of the country and we're down the other,” he says.

“They'll have as much information on us as we will on them so it's a bit of a journey into the unknown for both schools and you're just trying to do your best.

“It's great to get to a Final but Finals are there to be won so please God we'll come out the right side on Saturday.”

Saturday, March 19

Masita GAA Post Primary Schools Paddy Buggy Cup (Senior B Hurling) Final

St. Francis College Rochestown v Colaiste Bhaile Chlair, Meelick, 2pm.