‘It’s all about building and getting these boys to adult football’ - Four Masters Emmet Gallagher

Four Masters joint minor manager, Emmet Gallagher, had a beaming smile on Monday evening in O’Donnell Park as darkness fell. He was after watching his side put in the kind of performance you dream about in winning a fourth Donegal minor title in-a-row.

When put to him that it was a good contest for 20 minutes and then Aidan Quinn destroyed it he replied:

“Aidan’s been in that position before. We have seen him do that, where takes off up the middle. When a man of that size and that pace gets going, he’s very hard to stop.

“And he did, he probably changed the tone of the game at that time. It was a real momentum swing,” said Emmett Gallagher, joint manager.

“What you have, these boys have been building and building over the years. The whole underage thing has been about getting these boys through to adult football and trying to get them into a position where they are able to take that step up. You can see players like Aidan today there, they are so close to that already. It is brilliant to see it.”

It is probably easier to create the culture that is within Four Masters now because they are winning but Gallagher feels it is down to the desire of the players.

“Listen, the momentum is there. But if you look back at the first minor team that we had, the first of the four in-a-row some of them we have lost to college or injury. Or their life takes them to a different country.

“What we have in the club at the minute is that we have a lot of players with a lot of desire. Their desire is to be the best version of themselves and you see there today, there’s players stepping up a year young and really performing well in that environment. And that is down to the leadership of the older players.

“We have it at senior level where the older players are bringing the young boys through and we see it now at minor level where you see them younger boys coming into the system. It’s brilliant to see that mix.”

Winning four titles in a row is a great individual honour but Gallagher also felt that the first time winners were just as important.

“It’s brilliant to see Turlough (Carr) and Conor (McCahill) starting and winning their fourth minor title. Daniel McGinty unfortunately missed out today through injury and Lewis McCaughan was also part of that squad. 

“Four medals is fantastic but for some of those boys today it was their first medal and it will mean as much to them to get that one medal.

“You talk about the hunger and desire; at the start of the year a minor medal was a big thing for them. And even having one, two or three, they were hungry for more.

“And the younger players will want to push on and get more next year.”

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The Donegal Town boys got a scare in the semi-final when Naomh Conaill pushed them to the end and that was a factor in the final.

“Glenties, down through the years, at U-16 last year and again this year at minor. We didn’t expect anything more than a couple of points in that game. They played for the full 60 minutes and our boys found something within them at the end of that game to come back and win it.

“We talked about it today before the game, about the opportunity early on to get the ball into the full-forward line. We thought we had the pace and the drive in there to create goal chances and it was just brilliant to see them taken so excellently when we got in there,” said Gallagher.