The Allianz Interpro’s at Croke Park on Friday and Saturday were a major talking point at Club Championship games up and down the country over the weekend with a broadly positive response to how the new rules opened up the game leading to a dramatic win in the end for Ulster after a penalty shoot-out.
Replicating the new pitch lining and the added responsibility on officials at club level will be more of a challenge than it was in Croke Park in front of the TV cameras but overall it seems a very positive move and one that will spark an increase in interest and engagement.
That said, the existing rules did not prevent drama in clubs and on local pitches throughout Sunday.
Cuala and Kilmacud Crokes played the Dublin Senior Football Championship Final at a packed Parnell Park. Two of the biggest clubs in the country going toe to toe and ultimately separated by a single injury-time fisted point may not make the biggest headlines outside of the respective ‘parish’ boundaries, but a first title in the clubs’ football history was celebrated long into the night in Dalkey.
Indulge me a moment. This is my club, so having a bird’ s-eye view of what it means made it a somewhat special event.
Cuala had only ever made it to one Senior County Football Championship Final back in 1988, so this was always going to be special and against our neighbours bidding for a fourth title in a row and with the AIB All Ireland Club Championship in their back pockets, even more so.
Both are huge clubs fielding hundreds of teams, but it is when people come together to support the club as a whole that the club becomes that.
Yesterday Cuala had a Second Adult Camogie team bidding for a Junior Two League and Championship Double against Raheny at 1130 in the morning. As a coach of that great team, this was my priority and a late equalising point in windy conditions means our season will continue for a week or two more.
The club also had it’s Minor A Camogie team competing in the Division One Championship Final at Abbotstown against Lucan Sarsfields for a trophy named after club member Orla Quill who tragically passed away in 2015. Sadly that proved a step too far but the 3rd Adult Camogie team did strike a win in their Shield Final. There were Minor Boys and juvenile matches to be taken in as well across the county before the focus switched to Parnell Park.
The thousands of kids coming directly with their face painted red and white had availed of the club hiring a dart train to travel non-stop from Dalkey to Killester. They were joined by the teams and supporters coming from north, south, east and west; by the Cuala Ultra’s making noise and memories around the ground.
This wasn’t the first rodeo for either club. Cuala had gone all the way to winning the AIB All Ireland Club Championships in Hurling as recently as 2017 and 2018. However, winning a senior football title was special in what a proper multi-code club is.
The reality of the dual player is an increasing rarity. At the top level, really, only Dublin, Cork, and Galway are competing with equal prominence across each and even in the other two counties, there is a geographic split that makes the dual club or the dual player very much the exception.
In Dublin, that is not the case, with the majority of clubs fielding juvenile teams in all codes and generally encouraging equal participation.
The football side of the house in Cuala then was always interwoven with the hurlers and was always fully supportive, as the hurlers were yesterday, but there was always a sense of toiling a little in their shadow.
Now the light shines as bright on one as the other and the club will compete in the Senior Championships of Football, as County Champions, Hurling, Ladies Football and Camogie in 2025.
In both the men’s and women’s games, the boys and the girls, players wear their red and white jerseys in big ball and small ball games and at training week in and week out and do so with equal enjoyment.
It is a serious commitment, but it is also based on a love of the games and the club that cannot be overestimated.
Of course, there are the occasional spats over training facilities, hardly unexpected in a club that, despite its size, owns not a single blade of grass and relies on Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, schools and other clubs for training grounds and pitches.
But on a day like yesterday, they are all forgotten. The challenges behind the nights in the rain, the drying of the bibs, the scrambling to get players and the fundraising to keep the show on the road are all worth it.
Sport comes in many shades, in many shapes and sizes. All of them are worthy of our interest and our support. All of them can unite the country as they do in the highest-profile games.
But perhaps they are at their strongest and most powerful when they unite friends and families, giving them memories that will pass down the generations, giving us a sense of place and a sense of belonging.
That is why sport is so special.
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