Naomh Columba's Ryan Gillespie following in a proud family tradition

Tradition is a very important part of the GAA and on Saturday Ryan Gillespie will be carrying a healthy amount of that on his shoulders when he lines out for Naomh Columba in the Intermediate championship final at O'Donnell Park, Letterkenny.

Gillespie, something of a veteran of the present Naomh Columba team at the age of 26, is following in big footsteps as his grandfather, Josie, who is remembered as being one of the best footballers of his era in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s and into the '70s.

Josie was a central figure on the great Kilcar team of the early '60s that reached a senior county final and returned to play with his native Glen when they were revived.

"You would get whispers here and there when people find out who you are, who you are related to,” Ryan Gillespie. “They would be talking about the good footballer my granda was and that he was a hardy bit of stuff on the field. He was one of the main players back in the Glen team throughout the years. He would be modest enough himself and wouldn't tell me too many stories.

“I suppose it is good to see him out supporting. "You are doing it for yourself, but you are also doing it for your family and the people coming out to support you.



“He'll be the happiest man in Glen if we did manage to get over the line. He doesn't miss many games.” There has been sporadic success - plenty of good days with Coláiste na Carraige with Donegal and Ulster titles; an U-16 Division 2 championship as well as minor league and championship.

The good days at Coláiste na Carraige was with a team that included many of his teammates on Sunday next, the likes of Pauric Ward, Philip Doherty, Philip McNern, Stephen Jones, Pauric Cunningham with a good sprinkling from Kilcar as well, Conor Doherty, Aodhan McGinley, Stephen McBrearty and Martin Byrne.

"Saturday will be my first county final at adult level. I'm in my ninth season with Glen and we got promoted from Division 3 and we won a County Gaeltacht down at Naomh Muire but this is my first county final day."

Getting to county finals is not easy, but while success has not always come their way, Naomh Columba have a proud record in getting to finals in the past, something that Ryan Gillespie, a National School teacher in Killybegs, is well aware of.

"You would know with the tradition in the area and all the big names down through the years. You would be hearing about all the finals in the '90s and all the big buzz that was around. So it is nice for us to finally get back to a county final and you can already see the buzz that's in the area.

"Over the last few years we got massive support but we probably fell short at the final hurdles. You could see the disappointment in the area. We knew what we are capable of; we know the players around the dressing room and we kinda felt there was more in us, when you saw the teams that beat us going on to lift the cup. And that kinda drives you on a little bit more and realise that could be us."

And what was the difference this year? "I suppose we just sat down at the beginning of the year and realised what we had to do ourselves,” Gillespie added.

“The players took more ownership this year, rather than pointing fingers and blaming other factors. We just realised it is up to us, that we are the 15-20 players on the field. "We are all a year older and have that bit more experience. That comes into it when you are trying to control games. We would have looked at videos and learned from mistakes.

“They say, you either win or you learn. We had a lot of learning to do the last few years. We probably learned how to close out games, that bit of experience is standing to us now." For many of the past years, Gillespie has been one of the scorers-in-chief for Naomh Columba but he is happy to share the load now.

The arrival of Aaron Doherty to the senior squad has also helped, but he feels that they now have scores coming from all areas of the field. "That's the thing this year,” he added.

“Aaron came off the county team this year and maybe the first two championship games, he had great games but not on the scoreboard. It just goes to show the scoring power we have around the field. Our first couple of scores the last day came from the back line. When you have that scoring power throughout the field, you just cannot pick the one or two that you have to mark.

"We know that if I have an off day or Aaron is not scoring, we have fellows who will step up. You need leaders everywhere to step up with big scores and to be honest, all year we are getting that good spread of scores throughout the field." Another big factor this year has been Naomh Columba's ability to score goals.

"As the cliché goes, goals win games,” Gillespie added. “We have been lucky enough to find the net a few times this year. When you get that far up the field, we will take them three pointers as much as we can. Myself and Kevin would have no excuses for those misses the last day but hopefully the next day out we will find the net."

While there might be a good buzz in the Glencolmcille parish this week, Gillespie is well aware that they face a tough game in the final when they meet Dungloe on Saturday. "We are under no illusions about Dungloe,” he said. “We know what they are going to bring. We got beat in the semi-final by them last year up in Letterkenny. They went on and should have won the first final and they were beaten in the replay by Cloughaneely.

"We know that they will be hurting from that last year and we might go in as underdogs as they are the beaten finalists. They want to get back to senior as they were there more recently than us. We know ourselves that underdogs and favourites tags don't mean a lot. It's on the day. If you are the favourite and not performing to your best, you can slip up. We found that out ourselves on numerous occasions.

"Any final really is 50/50. We know what Dungloe are going to bring so we have to prepare our own side of things. We know what we can do so we just have to show up in the right frame of mind," said Gillespie. It will be an early start for the Gillespie family on Saturday as Ryan's brother, Ronan, will line out for the Naomh Columba reserves in the curtain raiser.