RICHARD O’Callaghan can still see the ball hanging above the head of the Enniskillen Gaels’ long-serving full-back. Seconds to play and if this doesn’t come off, it’s junior football.
“The fist of Gunn,” he calls it, smiling through the long strands of ginger beard as the man whose fist it was, Paul Gunn, heads for the dressing room with the rest of the Gaels’ management.
They were both good days, but very different days.
O’Callaghan is standing on the pitch in Tempo after helping knock last year’s beaten Ulster Club finalists out in the Fermanagh semi-final.
The subs are being put through the cruellest of modern ventures, post-match runs. The starting team have all gone inside. It might seem like a little thing but O’Callaghan stays out to encourage the youngsters.
Twice in the early-to-mid 2010s, Enniskillen Gaels found themselves in relegation playoffs to go down from intermediate to junior. Who knows what becomes of the whole operation if they make that drop.
“We played Coa in Irvinestown and Newtownbutler in Garrison. Two lucky occasions. The one in Devenish [against Newtownbutler] especially was a last-minute goal to keep us up, Paul Gunn who’s helping manage the team now - the fist of Gunn - he got it at the end.
“That’s how close we were to that level at a stage in those five, six, seven years. It’s great to be able to have days like this, and we had days like that last year too. It’s brilliant.
“Thank God these boys don’t have the memories of those dark days but I definitely do, and how close we were to going to junior football on two different occasions.
“I don’t remind the boys of that but I remind myself of it a lot, how close we were and how lucky I am now to be playing at this level with such a group of quality.”
When the chips were starting to stack up against them on Saturday, he pulled a few big plays out of his pocket. Crucial surging runs at the end of both halves were instrumental in key scores. In a one-point game, they were enormous plays.
At 31, he was too young for the halcyon days of the early noughties. The year after their last senior title in 2006, he suffered defeat in an U16 championship final to Tempo.
But it was all false hope. By the time he was playing senior, the team was breaking up.
Simon Bradley was forever centre-forward on that team, which had gone into stoppage time level with Crossmaglen in the 1999 Ulster Club final only to succumb to a John McEntee winner.
They knocked hard on the door but never got back there. Yet they would have struggled to have envisaged what would come over the decade after 2006.
“Enniskillen’s like any town. We’ve a lot of soccer, we’ve a lot of other things that boys like to do,” said Bradley.
“For the club members it’s big because we had a long, dry spell there. It’s massive for the club and it’s easy then to get people involved and get kids involved when the top team’s going well.”
Was it the standard story of a club taking its eye off the ball, just presuming that the success will keep on coming?
“I think so. The top, top clubs don’t but we definitely did. The first thing we did was admitted that, we said ‘right, we made a mistake’. That’s the first thing you have to do when you’re trying to fix something.
“This time we’re not gonna do that. The youth won’t be affected by us going well.
“People [fixed it]. People within the club recognised it and it needed it. We got a group of players coming through that are very keen, very hungry.
“We put in a lot of work that’s not seen. A lot of work over the winter time, a lot of dedication, a lot of sacrifice.”
O’Callaghan reaches back to the winter time too.
In last year’s final, Conall Jones’ penalty had the game to bed ten minutes into the second half. 1-5 to 0-2 ahead, Derrygonnelly weren’t going to lose to a team playing its maiden final.
Not only their first final but only O’Callaghan had any notable experience of senior championship football.
Saturday was, for the majority, just an eighth senior championship game and just a fourth knockout win.
The youth have different experiences. Eoin Beacom stood out a mile on Saturday at midfield. He was captain when they won the Ulster minor title in 2017, the standout success that emboldened the idea that they truly were on the way back.
But O’Callaghan reaches into Derry and reigning champions Glen for the example of how underage success is no guarantee of anything, that it has to be backed up by the same work again in adulthood.
“You look at Maghera, the work has to be put in at the level when you get up there. This year, the boys have worked really, really hard. There were questions asked last year and we’ve all responded to them. The work was put in.
“You’re right, seeing that coming up, of course it does give you a bit of a boost to keep going, especially boys like me who were struggling playing intermediate and junior playoffs, when you can see it coming it helps. Those boys, that age group, they’ve driven it on.
“Anything they’ve been asked, they’ve responded to and said ‘yes, yes, yes’. Their willingness to get better as a team and individuals is testament to them.
“I wouldn’t say we didn’t do ourselves justice last year – we were beaten by a better team. There’s no question about that. We learnt a lot in terms of where we were at, the team physically, fitness wise, the bench and we’ve improved that and closed the gap, definitely, on the standard Derrygonnelly set.
“They’re Ulster finalists from last year. We’ve definitely closed that gap. How much we’ve closed it, that’s open to interpretation, but we’d be happy we’ve closed it a good bit.
“Probably still a bit to go to get us over the line. The championship final will be the ultimate test for us of how much we’ve closed it.”
