Sleacht Néill’s latest All-Ireland adventure

SLEACHT Néill hurlers face into the club’s fifth All-Ireland semi-final bidding to smash the glass ceiling to book a first ever appearance in the showpiece.

After winning a fifth Ulster Championship – on the back of a 12th successive Derry title – they take on Sarsfields of Cork on Sunday.

Their semi-final win over Cushendall and the quality of hurling was followed up by a deep dig from an eight-point hole to overcome Portaferry.

Of the four teams left in the race to lift the Tommy Moore Cup, Sleacht Néill are the most experienced group.

They’ve been used to success but it wasn’t always this way. And Padraig Dougan, a selectorcoach under new manager Paul McCormack, knows too well.

He was captain when they won the 1993 Derry title – after a gap of 24 years- and dipped their toe into provincial hurling for the first time. It was a humbling at the hands of Cushendall.

Seven years later, he was part of their next winning team who came a cropper at the hands of Dunloy in their first Ulster final.

After a sustained spell of underage coaching, the Emmet’s were Derry champions again in 2013 and have held the Fr Collins Cup since. Total domestic dominance.

Dougan was involved for the early years of their 12 years at the top before making a return this season.

“We were delighted to win that Ulster title back,” he said of a fifth success, something unimaginable from his own playing days.

Dunloy beat them in 2022. It was Cushendall in 2023. Combined, it left a cloud. Were Sleacht Néill starting to slip? The players didn’t think so.

“The boys put a big, big shift in this year,” Dougan said of their Derry ambitions before going at the Ulster Championship.

“There was always a fear, in my head, that once you let it slip, and the Antrim and Down teams start to build again, it would be very challenging to get back to that top table,” he said.

“That wasn’t in the heads of the players at all. They believed that they were good enough to get it back and thankfully it proved that way.”

It’s their golden generation, one moulded and polished by a structured underage production line. There was no secret sauce. Time. Skills. Cajole. Repeat. Guiding hands were plentiful. Trips aplenty for challenge games across Ulster. The perfect mix.

There was an electric start against Loughgiel in the 2013 Ulster final before falling away. The following year, they were deadlocked with Cushendall in a belter of a drawn game before losing the replay.

It was extra time in 2015 before Cushendall pulled clear but Sleacht Néill weren’t to be denied the following year when they downed Loughgiel to clinch an historic first title.

“We got a fantastic batch all together, around the one age, all very, very talented players,” Dougan said of the foundations.

They didn’t stand still. Every year, a new player was plonked from the minor grade to keep everything fresh.

“They got exposed to a standard of hurling around Ulster by the men who took them and travelled with them everywhere,” he added of the club’s hurling fortunes.

It hasn’t been a straight line. They’ve had retirements and others jetting off to see the world. But the conveyor belt kept dropping off new players.

“There have been other good teams who were going for five or six years,” Dougan points out, “but they haven’t probably been as lucky as us in having the ability to get younger players fed into the system nice and early to keep that momentum going.”

Another element was the Sleacht Néill doubling down on the number of games with excursions into the Antrim leagues at underage level.

It brought a couple of angles to their progress. More games equals more touches in a competitive environment. As the years went by, playing the top Antrim sides wasn’t novel. It was the norm.

Like their days of going to the All-Ireland Féile and playing in the Ulster Minor Tournament in Ballinascreen, it brought fresh opponents.

And with that came different styles and, in the case of the top teams, the demand for a faster thought process. Getting acclimatised to the sizzling ball in a pressure cooker environment was important.

“Fitness was never a problem,” Dougan said, agreeing that Sleacht Néill never lacking determination, ambition and interest.

“With hurling, the speed of the ball, the skill and the first touch only comes when you’re in that competitive environment against players who are of that level.”

Going outside their comfort zone was the real learning came. Hurling is about the speed of the ball and the level of control.

By senior level, playing Loughgiel, Cushendall or Dunloy was an extension of underage.

To the same tune, Sleacht Néill’s recent wins over the ‘Dall and an equally impressive Portaferry team were just what was needed as Sunday looms.

The Cushendall match showcased how clubs in Ulster belong with the rest. They just need to rub shoulders with giants more often.

The Portaferry challenge pushed Sleacht Néill to the edge. But not over it.

“Those two games were absolutely invaluable to us,” said Dougan, also stating the importance of their four doses of All-Ireland semi-finals already in the bank.

“They were two different games, two different responses from us, which I think will hopefully prepare us better.

“One where we started really well and finished really well and one where our start probably wasn’t as good.

“We clicked really well in the last 18 minutes or so (against Portaferry) which, at the end of the game, reassured us that that’s still in our players.”

Sunday in Newbridge is the next chapter. It’s Sleacht Néill’s 28th championship game outside of Derry in their history.

Their win record is marginally more than 50 per cent but they’ve yet to win a game outside Ulster and they go in with their eyes wide open.

“You would hope that the belief is there that it’s within us and it’s within our group to do it,” Dougan said of tapping into the semi-final experience.

“We’re going down to play Cork champions, the Munster champions who dethroned Ballygunner. We’re under absolutely no illusions of the task ahead of us.”