The tide continues to rise at Four Masters following year of underage successes

The Function Room of the Solis Lough Eske hotel outside Donegal town is packed for a special presentation night for the underage footballers of Four Masters. It’s a night that sees the club take a clean sweep of the county underage Division 1 titles - U-13, U-15 and U-17 - a unique achievement and one that underlines the great work being done at the club over the recent past.

A week earlier one of the new young breed of leaders at the club, Pauric Harvey, was re-elected chairman at their AGM. Harvey has plenty of organisational skills, but he is also not afraid to get his hands dirty as he is deeply involved in the coaching of the up and coming players at Tirconaill Park. Harvey feels that it is all about getting young people playing and getting the right people involved.

“When you look at the numbers here tonight with U-13, 15s, 17s county champions, it’s great. We have had a great focus to get as many boys and girls to try out Gaelic football.

“What we have done, we have done. I suppose St Eunan’s have done it before us. It’s about getting teams at each age group, 6s, 7s, all the way up. And then what we’ve done really is targeting getting good people in with them. It has worked quite well and that combined with people who have played for the club or who have played Gaelic football and have come into the club. Those things combined have made us a bit stronger at underage.

“Yeah, there has been a big focus on our underage because now we have to continue that on and get them through to senior football. That’s our hope, that they all want to go on and keep playing.”

The Four Masters panel following their victory over MacCumhaill's in the Division 1 Championship final in Convoy

The club chairman says the transition at senior level has already begun this year even before this year’s great success.

“Yeah, that’s the way we have gone with the senior team. You can see all the senior teams around Donegal, Termon, Glenswilly, St Eunan’s, they are all very young. They have introduced new groups of players there, mainly U-21s, and that’s what we’ve done as well.

“We have seen a bit of progress with our senior team. They were more competitive this year. I think they came 4th or 5th in Division 2; 18 months ago they were nearly relegated to Division 4.

“Yeah, the future is bright for the senior team. We’re hoping to be more competitive again this year in Division 2. I know it’s going to be difficult but if we can push to get out of it or to be up there to get out of it and introduce some of these minors that have come through (this year) to reserve and senior football.

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“The future is bright for the club. The message to the players is continue playing it and keep enjoying it. We’re lucky to have great people here (looking after them). They have gotten to know the players, the mums and dads and guardians,” he says, adding that getting new people involved is something that has to be worked at.

“It’s a constant every year. You’re always going to have ups and downs. There is no right or wrong way to do it. What you want is people who are willing to put in their time. Once you have that, whether they have played or not or managed or not, once they are willing to put in their time.”

Apart from the coaching side of things at Four Masters, there are also huge plans for new dressing room/Clubhouse development at Tirconaill Park with Rory O’Donnell and Conor Gillespie driving that project.

“We have had a 10-week draw over the last two years that has raised €200,000. They went around the businesses and got corporate sponsorship. We are up around €500,000 raised in the last two for a clubhouse that we are hoping to get started next July, August time.

Four Masters, Division 1 County Feile Finals for Under 15 boys

“We have paired up with the Bluestack Centre and it’s been brilliant. We do a thing on Saturday for them, a bit of coaching and giving them games on the Astro.

“We just want to be a club that gives everyone a chance of playing at all age groups,” Harvey, who admitted that a lot of them won’t stick at it. “We know that, but we want them to enjoy it while they are here and we hope that they want to go on and play senior football.”

As for the underage success this year, Harvey says that is the icing on the cake. “As long as you are competing with the teams that are there in every age group, that’s what we are doing.

“Donegal is very competitive at all the age groups and you can see the work that is going on in Termon, Glenswilly, St Eunan’s, Naomh Conaill, Gaoth Dobhair, they are all putting in the work. It’s great for Donegal football. Maybe the Donegal senior team is rebuilding with a few players stepping away. But when you look at the underage and the Donegal teams coming at underage, they are all strong. There’s plenty of good footballers coming,” said Harvey.

SUCCESS IS BY-PRODUCT

Manager of the U-17 team, Damian Dunnion, has been around the club as a player and coach a bit longer than Harvey and he feels the origin of the recent success goes back much further than the last four or five years.

“It’s not just the last four or five years, we’ve been getting the fruits of what we have been doing over the last 10,12 years just focussing on the underage from Academy upwards. Getting them in early and working hard with them for teams at U-8, 10 and the teams now at U-11, 13, 15, 17. Just keep them playing and enjoying it first and continuing to get them into the teams and working hard.”

Dunnion explains one of the reasons why they have got the success they have.

“Probably what we do have, although we only had one team at U-17, we had a team at 15, 14, 13, 12, 11. So most of the players are playing every year, rather than having one squad and you have a lot of boys that don’t play or not as much.

“We are not really focussing on winning, we are focussing on getting players playing. Winning has been the by-product, a lovely bonus. We don’t emphasise that we are out to win anything, we emphasise that we are out to play. Everybody gets to play as much as possible.”

That meant having two teams in each age group with, for example, U-15s playing in Division 1 and U-14s playing U-15 Division 3 or 2, and likewise at U-13.

Four Masters celebrate their victory in the County U-17 Division 1 League success in Convoy in June

“We tried to do it at U-17, but we just didn’t have the  numbers  this year. My full intention at the start of the year was to put in a team in Division 3 at U-17 as well.”

But like the club chairman, Dunnion says the end point for all of these players is to play senior football with the club.

“Aye, that’s the main focus. Even this week, of our U-17s, we maybe have seven or eight going into the U-21 squad. That’s the next step, to produce players that can go to the next level and then push on into our senior and our reserve teams.”

He says that while there are good numbers of people in the coaching teams, there is also doubling up.

“Whilst you would imagine that we have a lot of people, this year we doubled up. Pauric Harvey and Emmett Gallagher were U-15 managers and Pauric and Emmett were with me at 17 as well. We had a nice consistency.

Four Masters U-13 manager Conal Gallagher with his wife Kathy and son Kian in Convoy

“Down through the years, the other ages, like every club, there are a lot of parents. We have been lucky to get good people at every age group that are willing to put in the effort and work hard.

“And we have the ethos within the club now that you try to go 12 months of the year, or at least 11 months of the year. In the past, maybe, you finished up in October and you weren’t seen again until February, March. For anyone taking over teams now, they know that you have to keep going at least 11 months of the year and giving the kids football.

“The Astroturf is very important, especially at this time of year. I would do the booking for the Astro and there’s not an available slot on our Astro, because everybody is out from U-7 to U-17, because of Ulster and that. It is invaluable at this time of year.”

And what about taking the next step, participating in the Ulster minor club championship, with a game against Irvinestown of Fermanagh this Saturday at Colaiste Feirste, Belfast (5 pm).

Dunnion says taking this next step will be a good learning experience for the players.

“I hadn’t really thought about Ulster. It had been mentioned to me a few days before (the final). It is a nice bonus. We play the Fermanagh champions and they played their county final today and we were up at that, myself and Pauric.

“Irvinestown won that game and won it very, very comfortably; a really good side, a nice to watch and play really good football. We are looking forward to that now.”

Four Masters captain Caolan Sweeney accepts the U-17 Division 1 League trophy from Marc Brown
 

The manager says that they already have some experience of playing teams from outside the county having won the All-Ireland Féile in 2019 in Galway.

“They are used to playing other teams, different teams. You become familiar with the teams you play in Donegal and I would have become familiar with the players that even played for other clubs because I have managed these boys right through.

“It throws up different things for them to deal with and it’s definitely another step to bring them on..

“They are really looking forward to it. They have all bought into it and are keen to play in it. It is not easy getting them training now as they are all at school, training at school, playing soccer, this, that and the other, but we have been getting them together once a week.

“It’s bonus territory. Again we are not setting out to win the competition, we are setting out to win the next game and take it after that,” said Dunnion.