Brothers are the theme of the week.
The O’Callaghans, Con and Niall, shared the last four scores of the game for Cuala to ease their way past Coolera-Strandhill on Saturday, but the performance of Ruairí and Darragh Canavan for Errigal Ciarán against Dr Crokes in the other semi-final a couple of hours earlier was simply magical.
I have three older brothers. The first two were born in Dublin, just over a year apart, followed by a five-year gap, a move to Galway, another brother, John, and then me, two years after that to complete the set.
The first two played plenty of football together, and I would have played plenty of football with John, if he’d had any interest in getting up for training on a Sunday morning – that however, asked a little too much of him.
So I barely played football with any of them. Brian, my eldest brother, was a cerebral full-forward, accurate in his own right, but even better at bringing other players into the play. Paul, who was younger than Brian by about 15 months, played wing-forward when he was with Brian’s age group, so by rights this should have meant a telepathic understanding grew between the two.
This was not the case. In the family folklore, it is recorded that Brian never once, knowingly and of his own free will, passed the ball to Paul in their entire underage career together. This seems unlikely, but Paul is utterly convinced.
Brian had to stop playing due to injury in his early 20s, so I never got the chance to see if he’d have passed me a ball or two. Paul also had his fair share of injuries but at some stage in his mid-20s decided to return for a bit of junior football. I was 18 and anxious to make the Milltown senior team, so despite the seven-year age difference, we got our one day out on the same team.
I was playing full-forward, Paul was corner-forward, and (it brings me no pride to say) I refused to pass him the ball. It didn’t start out as a clear-cut decision, but the more ball I got, the more I thought it would be hilarious if I just ... ignored him. He was doing okay in open play, I was doing okay, we were winning the game handily. I just thought it would ruin a good story if I were to hand the ball off to him. What good could it possibly serve?
With a couple of minutes to go, I made a break down the middle of the defence, and was 25 metres out directly in front of goal, with a full-back in front of me. Paul was all alone on the edge of the small square, awaiting the obvious pass. The opposition keeper was eight metres off his line. I felt I had only one option – which was to ignore Paul, and attempt to lob the goalie from 20 metres out.
This ludicrous decision got the pay-off it deserved, when my attempt flew off my boot, about 20 feet up in the air ... where it deflected off the post, directly into Paul’s hands, who duly rifled the ball to the net after his first and last pass from a family member.
That is a very specific kind of telepathy – the sixth sense to know that your snot-nosed younger brother is trolling you in real time, and that his hubris may yet reap a personal benefit.
Niall O’Callaghan is a fine finisher but the main thing that strikes you as you watch him for Cuala is that his runs are so unselfish, and geared at least as much at getting Con some space as they are at winning space for himself. In that respect he is the perfect foil for the more illustrious member of the family.
Darragh Canavan might be team captain, but the hierarchy is not quite so pronounced on the Ballygawley side of things. Darragh got the vital goal against Crokes on Saturday night but the quality of the finish was only bettered by the quality of Ruairí's pass – a 40 yard dart hitting Darragh on the chest while he was running at full speed.
There’s something special about seeing brothers dovetail like that, and there was something even more special about the moment eight minutes into the second half when Darragh hopped the ball, only for it to skid slightly off the surface. No matter – Ruairí was on hand to pick up his brother’s bounce-ball, turn on a sixpence and fire at goal. It would have been a hilarious score, if the ball hadn’t hit the post and gone wide for their first miss all day.
Just as familiar to anyone who played football with a sibling was Darragh’s goal attempt at the start of the second half – it was a thunderous shot, really well tipped over by the keeper, but there was Ruairí, to his left, giving him dog’s abuse for not passing the ball. Ask most people what their memories of playing with their siblings are and they’ll say ‘verbal abuse’, and lots of it.
This is what club finals are supposed to be about, siblings doing it for their own on the biggest stage – we’ve already had the McGraths, all six of them, briefly on the pitch together during the camogie final for Sarsfields of Galway. Whichever pairing brings the fire on Sunday will go a long way to deciding the 2025 All-Ireland.
