Niall O'Callaghan, ahead of the All-Ireland club football final, emphasizes the depth of Cuala's squad, highlighting it's more than just Con O'Callaghan versus Darragh Canavan. He discusses the team's performance in the semi-final win, the potential of young players, and the importance of collective effort.
Niall O’Callaghan insists there’ll be far more to the All-Ireland club football final than just 'Con versus Canavan'. How Con O'Callaghan, Niall’s big brother, and Darragh Canavan fare at Croke Park will certainly be interesting. But there’s much more to Cuala than Dublin colossus Con, even if he was excellent again on Saturday evening in Cavan.
Five points from the club and county icon, who already has two All-Ireland club hurling medals, and two late on as Cuala fought off a Coolera/Strandhill resurgence, were vital. Niall himself, who also struck two late scores, along with the likes of David O’Dowd, their midfield duo and Dubs veteran Michael Fitzsimons all played their part. So Sunday’s All-Ireland final will be more than just a Con versus Canavan show? “There are 15 players on that team. Con is obviously a special talent but some of the young lads coming up, you are absolutely going to see their names around Dublin and Cuala teams for years to come so don’t be surprised when that happens,” said Niall O’Callaghan. Niall himself got a run with Dublin in the past. He was on the very first competitive team Dessie Farrell assembled in 2020 for an O’Byrne Cup game against Longford and scored two goals. It was a brief county career but could be reignited given his form. Niall shrugged: “Everyone has ups and downs. The last game, the Leinster final, probably was not my best. I probably have a bit more to give and that is the attitude that you have to take. “We are not going to rest on our laurels and think we are brilliant and start patting ourselves on the back. We can always build on it, personally and collectively.” That seems to be the outlook that Austin O’Malley has brought to Cuala since taking over three seasons ago. They were just out of the Senior B ranks at that stage. Now they are on the cusp of joining St Finbarr’s of Cork as the only two clubs to have won both All-Ireland senior club football and hurling titles. Sunday’s All-Ireland final may be the first game since the county final Cuala go into as underdogs, though. O’Callaghan said: “We have been watching them come out of Ulster and they have had some close scrapes, the same as we have. “They are an absolutely fabulous team. It’ll be a different type of game from Saturday.” Cuala were patient against Coolera/Strandhill and accepted that the Sligo side would play keep ball for long spells. It played out that way too, for the first half at least but Coolera/ Strandhill were just a little too patient and laboured. Five wides hurt them as well while marquee attacker Niall Murphy could only convert one of four scoring chances in that half. Cuala were more dynamic and direct and built a 0-6 to 0-2 half-time lead, stretching the gap out to seven in the third quarter before Coolera/Strandhill finally started playing their best football. They kicked five points in a row at that stage but Cuala had provided themselves with a vital cushion and hung on as thick fog worsened. Cuala manager O’Malley said: “We knew that there was a thunderbolt coming and it came and we managed to absorb it and see it out again. “I was confident. I knew when Coolera/Strandhill came at us that we’d enough intelligence out there, throughout our team, and we’d spoken about different scenarios and that we’d need to be clever. “It was a matter of getting momentum back and building better phases. We rushed a couple of little bits I thought, like our transitions and our counters in the second-half, we left a little bit behind us in terms of poor shot execution and we got caught with a couple of turnovers and that’s the stuff that feeds and gives energy to opposition teams. “So we need to be a lot cleverer on that going into next weekend and it’s something we really have to look at this week.
ALL-IRELAND FINAL CUALA CON O'callaghan DARRAGH CANAVAN CUALA's SQUAD
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