Eleanor Mallon: Keeping the faith

Eleanor Mallon missed All-Ireland camogie finals through injury, fights fires for a living and is part of the Moneyglass football team. She also coaches Antrim’s camogie goalkeepers. Michael McMullan writes…

Eleanor Mallon has tasted enough success and disappointment to know the difference.

As a firefighter, every small detail matters. There is risk, a need for precision and to hold one’s nerve.

Having played both camogie and football at county level, Mallon knows all about the importance of commitment.

The inner workings of a team are part of the attraction. Within a coaching bubble, the goalkeeper coach has a special bond beyond that.

Being a goalkeeper is a lonely place. A competition within a competition.

Mallon has walked in the same shoes as Antrim goalkeepers Caitríona Graham and Becky Ellis.

Like being a firefighter, an inch or a split second is the difference between a goal and a save.

It’s a mental battle too. The last ball is history. The next one is THE only one.

“Our goalkeeping sessions aren’t easy,” Mallon said. “The role of the goalkeeper has changed. You need to have somebody that can play ball.

“It used to be that you just threw anyone in there but that’s not how it works now.”

Every session has speed, agility, aerobic and anaerobic endurance work. Handling, first touch and ball distribution are there too. Every aspect of training is covered.

“Luckily for us, Caitríona (Graham) is from Antrim,” Mallon said of their first choice ‘keeper.

Mallon believes Graham would have had an All-Star if she was playing with one of the top senior counties.

“She’s an incredible leader to have in the squad,” she added. “Honestly, she was a very natural selection for the captaincy this year.

“She’s just been brilliant, so professional. Her attitude is just second to none and drives everybody on.”

In many ways, it sums up the group, their targets and how they wanted to advance.

Cork and Galway play in Sunday’s senior final. Antrim beat Cork during the league and hurled Galway very close.

Antrim weren’t naïve enough to think they’d win the Division 1A league having stepped up for the first time last season, but they knew what was under the bonnet.

“Moving up, into the biggest bracket you can, was going to be a big ask,” Mallon admits.

“With the quality in the Antrim squad, we knew that there was going to be no issue with performing.

“We’ve got some of the best players in the country playing for us and it was all about pulling it together at the right time.”

The plan was to aim for the best performance possible and the rest would look after itself.

“When you’re dining at the top table, it really genuinely is a game of inches,” Mallon added.

There was the regret of losing to Kilkenny on the last day of the league and dropping back down to Division 1B for next season. That’s for another day.

“In terms of the rest of the season, we achieved what we set out for,” Mallon outlined.

“Essentially, we’ve ticked all three boxes. We put in good performances in in the league, we retained the Ulster Championship and we got ourselves back to an intermediate final.”

Now it’s about sealing the deal. Laois will have other ideas but the perfect ending is in Antrim’s hands. For now.

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Elaine Dowds was a popular choice to take over the vacant manager post after Carl McCormick and Martin Coulter stepped away.

Having been there before, she knew the lie of the land. There were many elements to the plan but one stood out – chase everything.

“One of the main things that ‘Dowdsie’ has been hammering home from day one this year, from the very first game, was that there are no lost causes,” Mallon outlined.

Everyone must be chased down. An opponent with any sort of headstart in the footrace had to be hounded. With the buy-in, everything else had a foundation.

“Antrim’s work rate has been outstanding more or less all season,” Mallon added. “There have been a couple of wee blips here and there that had to be addressed at half time throughout the season.

“If you’re relying solely on talent and star players, you’ll win nothing. As a collective, you can’t control your star players having a star performance, but you can control how well they work.”

Without any remnants of a work ethic, games come and go without any meaningful progress.

With Dowds setting the standard everyone had to follow, it all fed into an environment everyone wanted to be part of. As a management team, that’s gold.

“There are very few excuses of people missing training,” Mallon points out, “it would be a very rare occasion if there weren’t between 24 and 28 people.

“They had a players’ meeting at the start of the year. They knew that commitment levels were going to have to go through the roof to get to where they wanted to get to.”

That’s where the leaders kicked in, players such as Caitríona Graham, Lucia McNaughton, Colleen Patterson, Caoimhe Conlon and Nicole McAtamney.

“They’ve created an environment that nobody wants to miss out on,” Mallon continued.

“The vibe at training is always good. The vibe in the changing rooms before games is good, it’s positive.”

It hasn’t all been a bed of roses. Colleen Patterson, Caoimhe Conlon and Maeve Kelly had their injury problems.

“We’ve got Cassie MacArthur this year, she had a serious knee injury and has missed the whole county season,” Mallon said of the loss.

“She would have had a big influence on the squad as well. These things happen, you either get on with it and do your rehab and come back stronger, or you don’t.

“The girls have great attitudes, so they know the work that it takes to get over these things.”

Mallon knows all too well. An ACL injury ruled her out of Antrim camogs’ All-Ireland Junior final back in 2012, where they beat Waterford after a replay.

She was struck down by a torn meniscus and more knee surgery kept her out of the intermediate final 12 months later, a defeat to Wexford.

At club level, Mallon played camogie for Creggan before returning to her native Cargin when they started up again in 2015.

She was also a former Antrim football goalkeeper but was part of the Moneyglass attack on their run to last year’s Ulster title and All-Ireland final appearance.

The immediate focus is on Croke Park on Sunday. Beyond that, Mallon is on the pathway back after another knee surgery.

NOT THIS TIME…Eleanor Mallon (right) and Shannon Graham after Antrim’s 2014 football league final defeat

The recovery work is ongoing with the defence of their Antrim and Ulster titles in the weeks ahead.

“I had a bucket handle meniscus tear there at the end of May,” she said.

“I got surgery on it straight away, so the surgeon was able to repair it thankfully. It is a longer recovery but better for me in the long-term.

“Because it was the third surgery on the knee, they probably would have been talking about knee replacement within the next 10 years.

“I’m only 36, but I’m old in terms of my playing career. If I have another year left in me, that would probably be it.”

The target is to get back into the shape of her life and carry on into 2027 and see how it all pans out.

Moneyglass have the perfect mix. Talent, workers and athletes. They’ve also the confidence from winning games.

Last year was a dream that just didn’t have the fairytale ending on All-Ireland final day.

There is a desire to go one better that comes with a caveat. They are now the hunted. Should they make it six-in-a-row of Antrim titles, there is a minefield in Ulster they know too well.

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Working as a team is important in all walks of life. The hours of a firefighter and being on call doesn’t always work around sport or the normal nine-to-five working day.

Being on call, Mallon is often begging for shift changes around training times and games.

“It’s very difficult for me to balance my sporting career and my coaching,” she said.

“I’m begging fellas to cover shifts for me. They’re the things that everybody needs to be doing to make a good team work.”

In Antrim and in Moneyglass, there is both the drive to want it to work. After that, there is the give and take. Family structures are important too.

“Doctors, nurses and all sorts of different careers don’t always lend itself to team training three or four times a week, but somehow we make it work,” Mallon points out.

There is also the chemistry needed within a team. In the case of Antrim camogs, they needed to find a balance between club, county and the county U23 who won their All-Ireland.

“Half that U23 team are still in the senior panel and five or six of them are starting with the seniors,” Mallon outlines.

“They played a massive part and it was important that ‘Dowdsie’ (Elaine Dowds) was looking after them all.”

Her sister Lucia had the players in the gym on Monday. Curtis Ashcroft was in charge of pitch conditioning.

CROKER TIME…Eleanor Mallon in All-Ireland final action with Moneyglass last season

“Between him, ‘Gooch’ (Conor Gillan) and Chloe McShane (the camogie coaches), the training sessions are absolutely class,” she added.

“It’s super intense when it needs to be and dialled down if there’s a game coming up.”

Sessions are planned taking into consideration the time the goalkeepers peel away to work on their own coaching.

During the U23 campaign, everything was planned, even down to which players would be released back to their clubs for games.

At the end of the day, everyone needs to be playing camogie.

“’Dowdsie’ (Elaine) had her head screwed on from the get-go in terms of a training calendar,” Mallon summed up.

“Your body adjusts to the intensity and your first touch under pressure.

“It’s important that everybody was getting proper game time. I think that was managed really well.”

It has brought Antrim all the way to the biggest Sunday in the season. Laois stand in their way of the perfect ending.

For Eleanor Mallon, Croke Park is a familiar place. She has been involved with winning and losing teams.

Last weekend’s football final was decided by someone she knows very well. Maria O’Neill’s last gasp point won the All-Ireland.

Mallon and Antrim will be hoping for a similar result on Sunday. When you’ve experienced both sides of an All-Ireland final, winning is the only show in town.