In Focus: Sorcha Gormley’s year to remember

Sorcha Gormley lost the minor and intermediate All-Ireland finals in 2024 but bounced back to help the Red Hands to All-Ireland glory this season. The dual star spoke with Michael McMullan:

IT might be the off-season after Tyrone’s All-Ireland adventure but Sorcha Gormley is still in the sporting spotlight.

She was alongside Áine Grimes as the duo were presented with mementos at prize-giving in their alma mater, Carrickmore’s Dean Maguirc College.

The following night, Gormley was in the black and amber as Éire Óg camogs landed the Tyrone Intermediate title.

There is an Ulster campaign to follow as well as picking up an award having being named on the ladies’ All-Ireland Intermediate team of the year.

It has always been football. In the earlier days, she was on the books of Cookstown soccer team Mid Ulster until she ran out of evenings.

“When you go up the levels, you just can’t do it,” Gormley said of keeping as many plates spinning as possible.

As a second year sport and exercise science student at Ulster University, it will open up another set of sporting doors down the line.

In the beginning, sport was a series of underage blitzes across Tyrone.

It was mostly the number 11 jersey flung in her direction. Operating in the age groups above may have brought a different attacking role.

“I would have always been up around the forward line, it never really changed,” she said.

It’s no surprise. Her father Brian walked the walk for Tyrone and Carrickmore. Her aunt Eilish is one of the all-time icons of the game.

“Whenever we were at Granny’s, it would have been her taking us out,” Gormley said of the early memories.

“She was over our teams then when we were younger and Daddy would have been managing a lot of them.”

Between father and auntie, Gormley had no shortage of experience and knowledge to draw from.

“We were really lucky, our underage group in the club were unbeaten until our last year of minors,” she added.

“We would have won Féile All-Irelands and it was a really good group.”

Eventually it moved into Tyrone underage. She was the county minor captain last season when they felt the pain of an All-Ireland final defeat.

Called into the senior panel, she left an imprint on their run to the All-Ireland final. Five minutes after coming in off the bench, she had the ball over the bar.

It started a comeback that fell short. Leitrim had enough in the tank and it was a double dose of All-Ireland final emptiness.

Gormley’s highlights reel is only in its infancy but one thing jumps out – an ability to kick off both feet. A defender’s nightmare.

It’s lifetime of toil that has made her, literally, twice the player. With Auntie Eilish in her ear, she kept chipping away.

“It probably came from growing up,” Gormley said. “It was Eilish who mostly had been saying it.

“She was always saying that if you’re going to be a player that’s going to be marked, you’re going to be too easily marked on one side. You need to have both.”

The concept is simple. But talk is cheap. In the world of sport, the hours away from the spotlight make the real difference.

“From there, I just spent a long time practising and I’ve probably only started using my left recently,” she added.

There is a difference between kicking off both feet and actually doing it in the centre of a championship’s white heat.

When Fermanagh needed to be shaken off in this year’s All-Ireland quarter-final extra-time battle, the fruits were there for all to see.

After soloing right-footed into a tackle, two green jerseys blocked the road to goal.

Then came the twist before coming back onto her left before finishing a contender for goal of the year with her left. Magic.

“It took a while to get confident on it,” she commented on now being two years into kicking off both sides.

“I would have been practicing with it for ages but sometimes it just wouldn’t have gone where I wanted.

“It wouldn’t bother me which foot to go on now but it takes a long time to build up to that.”

It wasn’t enough last season. Gormley could only watch as Sligo minor captain Ciara Walsh lifted the cup she wanted to hoist above her head on All-Ireland final day.

There was another look of envy as Leitrim climbed the steps of the Hogan Stand to celebrate their All-Ireland Intermediate triumph days later.

“At the time you were disappointed,” Gormley recalls. “You had such a build up for what could have been probably the best week of your life.”

The regret of letting it slip would act as fuel when the Red Hands regrouped to assemble their 2025 plans.

Having played under Tyrone senior manager Darren McCann at underage, he was aware of what Gormley had to offer. With minor football behind her, the senior number 11 jersey was soon on her back. There was also the important welcome from the senior girls.

“To be fair to them, it’s a good group of girls and I get along well with all of them,” she said.

“You don’t really care who you talk to, you’re lucky enough in how they just welcome you in.”

Club rivalries are parked at the door but there is a genuine bond between the squad, helped by the management being conscious of the need to build a spirit that can’t be broken.

While Division One league football was the steepest of learning curves, it was important. Having less time on the ball focussed the mind. By the time the intermediate championship rolled around, it was another piece of the puzzle.

The final brick in the wall came in disguise, in the form of an Ulster Championship defeat at the hands of Down.

As disappointing as it was, it wasn’t the end of the line. If anything, it was another reminder of Croke Park, of Leitrim, of defeat and of what they wanted to avoid.

“After that game we all regrouped and that loss probably stood us,” Gormley admits.

Whatever doubt there was outside the camp, the Tyrone group built up a wall. Inside, it was time to get back on the horse.

“We knew we had to prove ourselves again nearly and it’s probably the best thing that happened when we look back,” Gormley added.

Tyrone turned the tables over Down in the All-Ireland group stages before hitting six goals past Westmeath to book a quarter-final spot with Fermanagh.

On the day she scored that wonder goal in Kildress, Gormley looks back on beating Fermanagh as the moment she believed they could go one better than ‘24.

“Whenever we were going into extra-time, the girls just had the attitude that we weren’t going to accept being put out,” she added.

“The older girls were probably driving the younger girls on, they’ve been there for longer, waiting on the title. It was driven into us, that we had one shot at it.”

When extra-time beckoned in the semi-final with Westmeath, Gormley hit another goal to book their place in the final.

Croke Park is paradise when you win but hell when you lose. Tyrone knew the latter. Defeat does that. It lingers.

That’s where manager McCann and his backroom team played their ace cards.

The Tyrone players were told to enjoy the occasion yet treat the actual game like any other they’ve ever played. If they took their training ground form to HQ, everything else would look after itself.

The previous year’s defeat was there in the background. From Gormley’s outlook, it was an unspoken reminder that didn’t dominate.

“The final the year before probably stood to us too,” she said.

“Getting beaten in that one, you got to experience the whole thing. You just know how hurt you are when you’re sitting there, seeing another team win it.

“We had to just block it out going in this year nearly and just play it as it came.”

Aoife Horisk and Katie Rose Muldoon scored goals. Niamh O’Neill hit seven points. Gormley chipped in with three. They needed it all.

Tyrone were champions. The Leitrim defeat was gone and with it the pain of falling at the final fence.

“For me anyway, for being so young, I think everyone that plays football wants to win something on Croke Park and to get up the steps,” Gormley said of the magical winning feeling.

All her dreams came through. It was the same when they carried the cup into Canavan’s restaurant at the team’s homecoming.

“It was lethal and made all the effort you put in the whole year, the training and cold nights, all worth it.

“Then, especially to see all the families there, it just showed what it meant to them too.”

Back in Carrickmore, where she helps coach the younger players, there was both a special feeling and the hope it would inspire the next generation to win an All-Ireland. To be named on the team of the year tops it all off.

“Everyone wants to play at the top level and it’s good to get an intermediate title but if you got the senior one, that’s your top goal.”

The teams still involved in club action will keep their eyes local. For Gormley and the rest, they’ll soon expect the call to get their 2026 Tyrone game face on. That’s the exciting bit.

For someone steeped in football, there is always a next chapter but 2025 was a year to remember.