Gaelic Games

Con O’Callaghan inspires Cuala to reach Croke Park decider

Couple of late points from the boot of the Dublin colossus fends off Coolera/Strandhill fightback

Coolera’s Danny Conroy tackles Con O’Callaghan of Cuala. Photograph: Lorraine O’Sullivan/Inpho
Coolera’s Danny Conroy tackles Con O’Callaghan of Cuala. Photograph: Lorraine O’Sullivan/Inpho
Paul Keane
Sat Jan 11 2025 - 21:56

All-Ireland Club SFC semi-finals: Cuala (Dublin) 0-14 Coolera/Strandhill 0-9

They’ll be glad out around Dalkey of the double-digit temperatures forecast for this week because there is much to get through.

An All-Ireland club football final just eight days after the semi-final will spell a busy few days of on-field plotting and planning.

Still, when you’re fresh off maiden county and Leinster title wins, and just four years out of the Senior B grade, fatigue or mustering the required enthusiasm for one last hurrah shouldn’t be a problem.

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“If you can’t get yourself up for an All-Ireland final, well then you shouldn’t be here,” reasoned Cuala manager Austin O’Malley.

This is a highly tuned, athletic and powerful Cuala team too with thirtysomething performers like Michael Fitzsimons and Luke Keating still at the forefront of the advance, as they displayed in Cavan.

Fitzsimons took off on one lung bursting sprint up the centre of the Kingspan Breffni pitch late in the first-half that drew a free for Con O’Callaghan to convert.

King Con’s influence was significant on the fog-shrouded evening too, the club and county icon scoring five points in total and digging deeper than most when the game hung in the balance late on.

Cuala had been powerless to prevent a seven-point lead with 40 minutes on the clock from being whittled down to two only seven minutes later.

O’Callaghan kicked into overdrive at that stage and along with sibling Niall they split four late Cuala points evenly between each other to keep the club on the trail of a historic achievement. If they win next weekend then they’ll join St Finbarrs of Cork as the only clubs to have won both senior club All-Irelands.

The five-point winning margin just about reflected Cuala’s superiority over the hour or so.

How their team of powerful athletes including big Dublin midfielder Peadar O Cofaigh Byrne, Peter Duffy, Charlie McMorrow and the O’Callaghans stacks up against Errigal Ciaran’s riches will be riveting.

“We’re delighted to get through to the final,” said O’Malley, the former Mayo and Wicklow forward. “We knew coming out, given the homework we’d done on Strandhill, that we probably weren’t going to see a whole pile of the ball just with the way they manage possession and they tend to drop the tempo a little bit and hold on to it for long spells.

“The key thing for us was really all about composure and patience and waiting for the right opportunities.”

That was pretty much the story of the first 40 minutes, Cuala patiently building on their 0-6 to 0-2 half-time lead and stretching the gap to seven thanks to their ability to turn over possession and capitalise with dynamic breakaways. At the point of their attack were the two O’Callaghans.

Then, as O’Malley said, came the “thunderbolt” they’d been expecting in the shape of five Coolera/Strandhill points in a row. You do not come through two extra-time epics in Connacht, and win a Sligo championship after a final replay, without embracing the hardship and John McPartland’s side did so again.

Substitute Adam Higgins, Mark McDaniel, Ross Doherty, marquee attacker Niall Murphy and captain Peter Laffey all contributed to that Coolera blitzkrieg of scoring between the 41st and 47th minutes.

But almost as soon as they’d come up in Cuala’s rear view mirror they were given the slip thanks to the excellence of the O’Callaghan brothers. As it happened, a third O’Callaghan, defender Eoghan, was shown a black card for an off the ball check in the 54th minute, leaving Cuala to summon that late burst whilst down to 14.

“The first half, we didn’t perform,” said Coolera/Strandhill selector Con O’Meara, who pointed to the influence of his namesake in Cuala’s colours. “Cuala, in fairness to them, had the answers when they needed them. They had that man, Con O’Callaghan. They’re brilliant footballers, all around the pitch. You can keep some of them quiet for so long but then they just come again.”

Cuala manager O’Malley was quick to frame the short turnaround to next weekend’s final as a positive but did acknowledge it’s probably something for the GAA to look at.

“Is there a lesson in it for the GAA in future years that it doesn’t allow this situation where this time of the year teams have just one week to prepare for a final?” he asked.

Cuala: R Scollard; E O’Callaghan, C McMorrow, D Conroy; E Kennedy, M Fitzsimons, D O’Dowd (0-1); P O Cofaigh Byrne (0-1), P Duffy (0-1); C Dunne (0-1), C O’Brien, C Doran (0-2); L Keating, N O’Callaghan (0-3), C O’Callaghan (0-5, three frees).

Subs: C Groarke for O’Brien 45, M Conroy for D Conroy 50, C O Giollain for Keating 58, L Tracey for O’Dowd 60, J Power for Dunne 64.

Coolera/Strandhill: K Harte (0-1); S Murphy, J Cassidy, S Taylor (0-1); C McDonagh, R O’Carroll, O Harte; K Banks, P Laffey (0-1); R Doherty (0-1), M McDaniel (0-2, one mark), L Doherty; B O’Mahony, A O’Boyle, N Murphy (0-2).

Subs: K Cawley for O’Mahony 38, A Higgins (0-1) for McDonagh 40.

Referee: N Cullen (Fermanagh).