Who’s going to follow in their footsteps next week?
All-Ireland Finals, as is the case with finals in every sport, can often have a huge effect on individuals that they won’t see coming beforehand.
It is why you’ll often hear a player complaining that a final ‘passed them by’ as they struggled to grasp the magnitude and deal with the pressure at hand.
Contrastingly, the biggest of occasions sometimes inspire the greatest individual displays and the finals of the AIB GAA Club Championships in both codes have been graced by some virtuoso performances over the years.
Will anyone from Corofin and Slaughtneil or from Ballyhale Shamrocks and Kilmallock follow in the footsteps of these five on Paddy’s Day?
We can’t wait to find out.
Diarmuid Connolly (St. Vincent’s v Castlebar Mitchels, 2014)
For years, there were doubts about whether Diarmuid Connolly had the temperament to match his outrageous talent.
Those doubts have been well and truly dispelled in recent years and perhaps never more so than last year, arguably his best yet.
The Dublin forward delivered probably the best individual display of 2014 in Croke Park on Paddy’s Day of last year, plundering two goals and five points and almost single-handedly destroying Castlebar Mitchels as St. Vincent’s picked up their second club title in six years.
The Mayo side simply had no answer to Connolly, who showcased all of his wonderful talent and bestrode Croke Park like a colossus, with a left foot screamer providing the coup de grace on his day of days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJx8IDi0Z5I
Liam Watson (Loughgiel Shamrocks v Coolderry, 2012)
Antrim side Loughgiel hadn’t been in a club final for just shy of 30 years when they rocked up to play Coolderry on Paddy’s Day three years ago, so a few nerves would have been more than understandable on the day.
Nobody better to quickly eliminate those nerves than the mercurial Liam Watson, who had helped himself to three goals and virtually assured the title was going north by half-time.
Watson ended up with 3-7 in total as Loughgiel emerged with a five-point victory. In fact, his individual tally alone was just one point shy of Coolderry’s 0-17 total.
From both dead balls and open play, Watson was virtually unstoppable; to be fair to Coolderry, they weren’t the first team to find that out.
Henry Shefflin (Ballyhale Shamrocks v Portumna, 2010)
An obvious choice? Yes.
A fully-deserved one? Absolutely.
Ballyhale and Portumna have produced some titanic battles over the years, but they’ve only met in the final once, a game that was billed as a battle between King Henry and the man who would be king, Joe Canning.
Canning, as it turns out, was immense, scoring 0-12 in total, 0-5 from play, and proving, not for the first time even though he was only 21, that he was the real deal and a man for the big occasion.
As was the case in the 2012 All-Ireland Final in which a Shefflin-inspired Kilkenny brought Galway to a replay, however, on this occasion, he was outshone by Henry.
Shefflin scored nine points, conducted the orchestra with absolute authority and ensured that the biggest prize of all went to Ballyhale for a record fifth time.
Michael Meehan (Caltra v An Ghaeltacht, 2004)
You’re 19, you’re playing in your club’s first ever All-Ireland Final in Croke Park and you’re being marked by one of the greatest defenders of modern times in Marc Ó Sé.
Intimidated? No because you’re Michael Meehan and this is what you were born to do.
Ó Sé did restrict Meehan to a single point from play but Michael, who along with his two brothers Noel and Declan accounted for all but one point of Caltra’s total on the day, deservedly received the man of the match gong when it was all over.
At that stage he had scored six points and provided an inspirational performance and it was the Meehans rather than the Ó Sés,who went home with the spoils after a one-point win in another epic All-Ireland club final.
Ciaran McDonald (Crossmolina Deel Rovers v Nemo Rangers, 2001)
Legend has it that Ciaran McDonald left his customised white Adidas Predator Mania boots on the pitch following Crossmolina’s defeat to Nemo Rangers on Paddy’s Day in 2003.
It was another day in which one of the finest footballers of the modern era graced the surface of HQ with a majestic performance, but ultimately it was one which ended in painful defeat.
Two years previous, however, with Nemo once again providing the opposition, McDonald ended up on the winning side and it was as much down to him as anyone else.
McDonald kicked seven points on the day, including four from play and including three in a five-minute spell immediately after the break which wiped out Nemo’s half-time advantage.
McDonald had some memorable days in Croke Park but this was the only time he would leave it with a trophy, one of the harshest realities of Mayo’s long unfulfilled dream to finally lift Sam once again.
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