St Eunan's and Naomh Conaill's history means little can be taken for granted

Last November, St Eunan’s rolled into MacCumhaill Park quietly confident although not overly backed in their attempt to take the Dr Maguire Cup to Letterkenny for the first time in seven years.

They faced Naomh Conaill, looking for their three-in-a-row, as the sign told us at the Town End. Nobody was to know it for certain then but by the time of the Donegal SFC was to be played, the world as a whole was eeking towards, although not fully at, some sort of normality in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic that had shook things over a peculiar year or two.

Less than three months beforehand, the 2020 championship had also concluded in something of an abnormality, with Naomh Conaill defeating Kilcar in a penalty shoot-out to lift the trophy in front of a capacity capped at 500, with many more watching from the couch on streams.

By the time last year’s final was contested, there was still a shadow over the previous one, with appeals put on ice in regards the Glenties-based side’s use - or misuse - of substitutes in extra-time in that August decider against Kilcar.

The changing landscape of the local football scene told us that St Eunan’s, in their first year under 2012 All-Ireland winning midfielder Rory Kavanagh, had reached the final under the radar.

But thanks to an incredibly sound tactically astute performance and Naomh Conaill pretty flat on the day, it was the black and amber ribbons that were placed on the cup as Niall O’Donnell accepted it on behalf of the winning team, who were comfortable winners, 1-11 to 0-4.

The win marked the latest punctuation point in domestic football in Donegal, when one preconceived notion can be banished on a single afternoon, or even with a wing of the boot. Naomh Conaill, for their part, had swung that trend in 2019 when, in the second replay, one swing of John O’Malley’s curling shot had ended Gaoth Dobhair’s term as champions and concluded any notion of back-to-back Ulsters for the Magheragallon club late one October Wednesday night.

Although Gaoth Dobhair, Glenswilly and Kilcar have all written significant chapters in the recent history of the Donegal SFC, it’s Naomh Conaill and St Eunan’s who provide the spine.

They meet in the showpiece for the sixth time, following on from their altercations in 2005, 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2021. In 2005, for the outsiders looking in, there was almost an element of innocence as the blue and white hoards excitedly came in through Fintown for the final against, what was then, a seasoned St Eunan’s.

Then, it was Naomh Conaill who were quietly confident, with a young coach by the name of Jim McGuinness, then only 32, who had hooked up with Hughie Molloy. When McGuinness had picked up a dreadful injury in a club fixture in 2004 against Killybegs – torn cruciate ligaments, broken a leg and smashed a kneecap – his inter-county career was over and although he would make fleeting club appearances for five years thereafter, his future would lie on the sidelines.

St Eunan’s scraped a draw that day, one where midfielder and current club chairman John Haran might’ve told you since he could’ve won it, and the theory was that Naomh Conaill missed the bus.

McGuinness, though, knows the thing about buses and and in the replay that followed, Naomh Conaill produced another significant defensive display with players as young as a 16-year-old Leo McLoone to win 0-10 to 1-5, when they chose their moments to break to perfection.

It meant the regretful memories and the ghosts of Leo McLoone Snr and Glenties’ 1965 loss to St Joseph’s could finally be put to bed.

By 2007, the teams were paired together in the first round with St Eunan’s having also been pipped to the crown again the previous season by Stephen Cassidy and Gaoth Dobhair in another low-scoring final. McLoone, still a teen, whalloped in four goals in the first leg in Glenties and Brendan Kilcoyne’s St Eunan’s were on the brink.

However, they came out fighting to win the second leg and play-off that followed and it marked a run of dominance that yielded three-in-a-row, which concluded with Eamon O’Boyle’s team defeating Naomh Conaill in the 2009 decider 0-13 to 0-7.

There would be no fourth successive title though, with Four Masters in 2010 finally ending the Letterkenny streak and Naomh Conaill filled the vacuum to overcome Killybegs in the final. Two years later, in 2012, the SFC began with the county still trying to shake off the Sam Maguire hangovers - masterminded by McGuinness of course. But when it filtered down following a breathless set of fixtures, there was a now familiar final pairing.

Naomh Conaill dominated that floodlit final, with Dermot Molloy and Daragh Gallagher swinging over points from all angles, with the latter even chosen 10 minutes before time to pick the Peadar McGeehin Memorial trophy, as the game’s outstanding player.

However, John Paul Clarke in the St Eunan’s goal made a vital save from McLoone before Lee McMonagle, then only 19, smashed the only goal having been fed by Ross Wherity. Then, from a disputed 45, Mark McGowan split the Naomh Conaill posts for a 1-7 to 0-9 St Eunan’s win that might well have been termed as a mash-and-grab.

Another All-Ireland appearance by Donegal in 2014 meant another whistlestop championship was claimed by St Eunan’s and when things levelled out in the final against Naomh Conaill the following October, they led by two points with time running thin.

In Martin Regan’s first team in charge, 14-man Naomh Conaill, without the red-carded Eoghan McGettigan, rallied to claim a narrow 0-11 to 0-10 with Aaron Thompson the unlikely match-winner on a day he started alongside brothers Leon, Anthony and Ciaran.

It took St Eunan’s six years to even get back to the final, coming out on the wrong side against Naomh Conaill by a single score in incident-filled semi-finals in both 2019 and 2020, until last season’s triumph. After the pandemic, they might have felt that normality was restored. Naomh Conaill, of course, mightn’t have the same opinion.

Kavanagh’s team now have the chance to put themselves on top of the official roll of honour with a 16th crown and Naomh Conaill, this season, despite the fact it’s their sixth final appearance in succession, are the ones considered to have come in under the radar. But if history between the two has taught us anything, it’s that nothing can be taken for granted.