Cuala and Cahill enjoying a dream campaign

By Niall Gartland

“WHO’S Cuala?” – RTÉ Broadcaster, Des Cahill, a familiar presence on our TV screens and airwaves, recalls a time when his beloved club wasn’t exactly the beating heart of the community.

Cuala, based around the leafy village of Dalkey, won a historic Dublin Senior Hurling Championship for the first time in 1989. A cause for celebration, you could say.

But Cahill recalls that even then the club barely registered with a-not insignificant number of locals, many of whom were miffed when talk in the local bar turned to their title triumph. “Cuala, who’s Cuala” was the refrain.

Cahill himself is certainly no latecomer. He’s a former Cuala chairman and managed football teams across various age groups (he even started up a ‘fifth’s team during the Covid pandemic, indicative of their sheer numbers).

And if their all-conquering hurling team weren’t given freedom of the village back in 1989, it’s been an even more arduous road to the top for their footballers.

They reached their first ever Dublin Senior Football Championship final in 1988 – and lost. Then the hurlers took centre-age for a period of literal decades, the pinnacle of which was their back-to-back All-Ireland title triumphs of 2017 and 2018. The football more or less had to give way, something which irked at the time and caused a palpable degree of friction in-house, but Cahill has now come to understand the thought processes.

And it’s now fair to say that their footballers – a number of which, including the great Con O’Callaghan, are talented hurlers – are having their day in the sun.

They won their first ever Dublin Senior title just before Christmas with victory over arch-rivals Kilmacud Crokes and now stand on the cusp of All-Ireland glory. And Cahill is loving every minute of it.

“People keep asking me why we’re getting so excited about this journey, given we’ve already won two All-Irelands. The difference is the hurlers were always in line to reach that point. It had been a step-by-step journey, they made a couple of Dublin semi-finals, eventually won a Dublin final and Leinster as well.

“The hurlers were very much on an upwards curve and getting closer to an All-Ireland, so it was always on the cards. During those years it was just about keeping the football team going. Some of the finest footballers in the club just went hurling and didn’t play football at all.”

The spark for Cuala’s surge powerhouse status was their double U21 Championship win back in 2009. They could’ve gone the Sleacht Néill route of attributing equal weight to both codes, but hurling won the argument.

Cahill said: “I was a selector in that 2009 team. We beat Kilmacud Crokes, they’re our big rivals and were red hot favourites. They could call upon Rory O’Caroll, Cian O’Sullivan, Craig Dias, Kevin Nolan who was man of the match in the 2011 All-Ireland final.

“We won that completely against the odds and that was one of my favourite ever days. It was my 50th birthday and there’s some nice photos of me later that night with a big ’50’ badge on my shirt, those are great memories.

“Then the hurling started going well and Mattie Kenny said to the lads that there’s no chance of winning a Leinster title if you play football. He thought you couldn’t play hurling every second week and keep your touch sharp all the time. In hindsight, I think he’s right and maybe that’s been Sleacht Néill’s problem when it comes to winning an All-Ireland title.

“It was a disaster from a footballing perspective though. I remember lads coming up to me and not being able to look me in the eye, and I’ve no doubt we’d have won Dublin Football and Hurling titles if we’d stayed dual. But at the end of the day Mattie was right and you can’t argue with All-Ireland titles.”

Cahill readily acknowledges that he had zero incline that the footballers would end up anywhere near an All-Ireland title. Two men who did believe, however, were their two most famous players, Con O’Callaghan and Michael Fitzsimons. Where they lead, the rest follow.

“I didn’t see this happening, to be honest. Con was asked after our semi-final win last weekend if he could believe it – and you have to remember we were something like 25 or 33/1 just to win the Dublin championship. But Con, who gave a great interview, said ‘no, we knew we were going to do it.”

“Then there’s Mick Fitzsimons – I texted him before the semi-final and I basically said ‘I can’t believe this’. And he replied saying they’d completely accounted for all this happening – that they had their schedule set up for it in terms of weddings. Mick’s a doctor and he’s organised his work-rosters towards being in Leinster. They were always planning for this within the squad.”

So who will it be this Sunday? Again, Cahill isn’t especially bullish about their chances.

“I don’t for a minute have a firm belief that we’ll win it. It’s hard hard to call – but jeez, the journey we’ve been on has been just unbelievable.

“I knew we’d a chance of doing well this year but I suppose a moment that stands out on my mind was when we played Ballinteer St John’s in a league match in the summer. If they’d come to Dalkey and beaten us, they’d have won the Division One title. They brought a big support with them but we blew them away in the second-half and that’s the day I thought we’d give Dublin a rattle.”

Like Errigal, they’ve also shown a very evident steeliness en route to the final. They defied the odds against Kilmacud Crokes in the Dublin Senior Championship final and after seeing off Sligo side Coolera-Strandhill, thoughts soon turned to Sunday’s All-Ireland final showdown.

“In the Dublin final, Con got sent off with five or six minutes to go and they’d just gotten a goal. I mean, the sending off was an absolute joke and it was rescinded. Crokes had all the momentum, we were a man down and that man was Con, and we were also against the breeze. I think it’s heroic that we still managed to win.

“Last weekend in the All-Ireland semi-final, if you watch it back, when the final whistle blew, the players reacted like it was a league win in Dublin. I like that in a way, it’s a sign of the leadership in the team, there’s no jumping around and getting carried away. Now the rest of us old lads in the stands are jumping around, it’s been unbelievable and a year I’ll never forget.