DOWN there, down in the gutters of that Newry goalmouth is where the game was won and lost.
Clann Eireann had Errigal Ciaran right where they wanted them in that semi-final and, with the goal gaping just before the break, it seemed Daniel Magee couldn’t miss.
Magee got his shot away but Niall Kelly was back on the line. With a combination of his legs and his body he somehow managed to block Magee’s effort and then, even more impressively, he had the composure to scoop the ball up and play his way out of trouble.
That over-my-dead-body spirit is what Ulster club football is all about.
Errigal survived, went on to win by a point and progress to Sunday’s Ulster final against Kilcoo. More goal line heroics could well be needed against the Down champions who hit five goals – and missed another couple – in their semi-final rout of Scotstown.
“I just sort of threw myself at it and it ended up landing in front of me,” 28-year-old Kelly, a teacher at Drumragh Integrated College, recalled.
“I just sort of got something on it and then I think one of the boys, I think it might have been ‘Rio’ (Ciaran Quinn), came in to block their player and I got a chance to lift it and go, so I did that.”
THAT Kelly, an All-Ireland-winner with Tyrone in 2021, was even on the pitch to make that vital block is down to his commitment to his club and his determination to recover from an injury that could well have ended his career.
A couple of seasons ago, during a league match with Errigal, he dislocated his sternoclavicular which, as he puts it with trademark understatement, meant: “Me collarbone dislocated from me sternum”.
“It was a brutal injury,” he explains matter-of-factly.
“It was in a league game in Tyrone. It was just a bang through the back of me and it sort of wrecked the shoulder and it went in around the sternum which dislocated.
“It was a 12-month thing. I was told: ‘Absolutely no contact for nine-to-12 months’. So, when you get that as a footballer, you think: ‘Oh, am I ever going to come back here?’
“But, obviously, with the support from family and fiancé and that and obviously the club push you on and help you through it… I’m just glad to be back on grass this year.
“I haven’t actually even thought about playing for Tyrone again to be really honest. I’m enjoying my club football at the minute and that’s where my head’s at. I’m just thinking of Sunday.”
In the days after the incident, playing football was the least of his worries. He was in a very serious condition and needed emergency surgery at the Royal.
“I think they were worried about blood vessels and stuff,” he explains.
After the surgery he required shoulder reconstruction and that meant having pins inserted to put the collarbone and sternum back together. Then came month after month of rehab and recovery until he got back to the level where he was able to put his body on the line on that goalline in Newry.
“I’ve had two surgeries there in the last year,” he says.
“It’s been a hectic enough one for me, to be fair. When you do your rehab and then you hit your milestones, you sort of have to just back yourself and back the rehab and the professionals who are telling you that you’re ready to go.
“So I have to say thanks to the surgeons and the physios and all.”
He returned to action midway through Errigal’s league campaign. Working with manager Enda McGinley he took it stage-by-stage – a couple of minutes here, a run-out there as he worked his way back to match sharpness.
“My fitness was obviously a wee bit low at that stage, from being nine to 12 months out,” he says.
“Now I’m just happy again to be in amongst it and with the boys in a great team and great teammates to have around me.
“And Enda (McGinley) is good man, he came in this year, and after my injury as a physio he could tell you different things and help you through it and give you that wee bit of confidence and obviously the motivation to get back and to push on.
“That’s what he did and I’m just grateful for it all.”
WITH Kelly back in harness, Errigal dethroned Trillick in the Tyrone final to reclaim the O’Neill Cup from the side that had beaten them in last year’s final.
Kelly’s tenacious commitment is typical of a well-organised, well-drilled physical outfit that does the basics so well and can rely on deep reserves of inter-county quality spearheaded by the scoring flair of the Canavan brothers Ruairi and Darragh.
“It’s a team game,” says Kelly.
“You’d have the likes of Ben McDonnell and Padraig McGirr and ‘Sparky’ (Mark) Kavanagh who I’d have played with all up through the years and then you have the younger boys, and you have a couple of elder men there… I’ll not name them (laughs).
“You have the boys off the bench that have dragged us over the line this year, changed games for us and kicked big scores too. We’re working with a panel of maybe 30 lads there and there’s boys that maybe didn’t even make a championship panel this year, that pushed this team really, really well this year and over the past couple of years.
“And there’s past managements that would have a bit of a say in that team that have pushed it as well. Enda has come in this year and given us a wee lease of life as well, but definitely there’s management teams and players before that pushed this team as well.
“You don’t go out at the start of the year to think: ‘We’re going to win Ulster title here’. You have to take one game at a time, obviously.
“You get nipped in the first round, and you’re back at square one the following year, so, we’re just glad we’ve got a wee bit of a run this year.”
ULSTER champions in 1993 and 2002, Errigal’s most recent foray into the provincial theatre was in 2022. Up against Derry champions Glen, the Tyrone men had the better of it in the first half but the Watty Graham’s, thanks in part to a disputed goal for them and a disallowed goal for Errigal, won by four points and kicked on to their first Ulster title.
“We came up against a serious team in Glen and we’ve seen what that team went on to do,” says Kelly.
“It was disappointing and I suppose it makes this year a wee bit more special. We’ve got a few wins, and we got a wee bit of the rub of the green in a couple of the games and got over a couple of lines. So we’re just happy to be where we’re at this year.
“In the Tyrone championship you were just trying to recover after a challenging game and then you were tossed right back into another one.
“I suppose that we were just week-on-week maybe stood us in some of the games as well. It probably worked for us.
“For that Cargin game (Ulster quarter-final) we were doing week-on-week and it probably stood to us, rather than Cargin. They had a couple of weeks off and maybe it just didn’t work for them on the day. So it’s been week-on-week and it’s just come around very, very quick.”
THE walls of the Errigal clubhouse in Dunmoyle are adorned with pictures of the teams who won the clubs pair of provincial titles. Kelly and his team-mates would love to join them and of they do they will have earned their place because on Sunday they face a side in Kilcoo who have been there and done that.
The Magpies were Ulster champions in 2019 and 2021 and All-Ireland winners in the 2022 season. They looked back to their brilliant best when they dismantled Scotstown at the semi-final stage.
“Here, we have a chance this Sunday week, but it’s only a chance when you look at Kilcoo,” says Kelly.
“They are a massive, massive team in Ulster Club and they have been there and done it and went on and won on All-Ireland as well.
“There’s a massive challenge ahead of us, so we’ll just try to give our best and count on ourselves on the day.
“You see the pace, you see the experience Kilcoo have. They can cut you to shreds in no time at all, so we’re under no illusions that the challenge is ahead of us. We have to be on it from the get-go, or we know we’ll be blown away.
“Against Scotstown it all changed very, very quickly - (it was) 0-5 to 0-5 and they went to 2-7 and 0-5. They can blow you away in no time, so you just have to be on it from every ball, every tackle.
“Hopefully we can hold our own and put on a bit of a performance for the Errigal people. You have to try and impose yourself on the game, but you know the class, the experience they’ve had in this arena before.
“They’ve been here, they’ve won a couple and went on and won All-Ireland as well, so they have the experience. We’ll just have to try and work as hard as we can, get a bit of performance and try and impose a bit of our game on them and see where it takes us.
“Good teams don’t want to lose and they’ve earned that right over the last couple of years, competing in All-Irelands and winning All-Irelands.
“There are no illusions how tough this will be and we’ll have to get on it from the get-go.”
On Sunday all that matters is the cup. It’ll be a scrap, a dog fight and it’ll be decided down there in the gutters where the dirty ball has to be won. That’s where you’ll find Niall Kelly.
