By Michael Devlin

Ciaran McGoldrick doesn’t spend a lot of time out on the golf course.

Despite his role as a lead operations analyst at GolfNow in Belfast, the Eoghan Rua Coleraine clubman admits he may have to wait until he hangs up his boots to devote more of his time to the game.

“I used to be a member of Portstewart Golf Club, but just with the football and stuff, you’ve no time to play. When I pack in the Gaelic, I’ll take it up a bit more. I’m not that good to be honest.”

The same goes for another small ball game, hurling. McGoldrick’s pre-occupation with football, and in particular spearheading Eoghan Rua’s bid this season for a first ever Ulster Club Championship title, has meant hurling was always going to come off second-best, despite the Coleraine club holding rank as a prominent dual club.

“Quite a lot of the team play hurling as well, but probably don’t give it as much of the focus as the football would get,” he told GAA.ie ahead of their semi-final with Scotstown this Sunday.

“We are junior standard. We’d be quite physical and fit, but our skills wouldn’t be that hot. It’s nice sometimes to get out and play hurling, it takes a bit of the pressure off. There’s a lot more pressure when you’re playing football.”

Eoghan Rua captured the Derry Championship this year for only the second time in their history with victory over Lavey in the final. Along the way the overcame Slaughtneil, the standard-bearers for dual clubs all over Ireland in recent seasons, and a juggernaut in Derry and Ulster football. The Emmetts were aiming for their fifth senior county football title in succession, but Eoghan Rua put an end to that remarkable run after a tense quarter-final replay.

“We always believed that we could beat them, and they probably felt that we could beat them as well, so I don’t think it was ever a question of belief. It’s about everything coming together at the right time, and we probably got the rub of the green against Slaughtneil. But you need that luck sometimes.

“We weren’t doubting ourselves going into the replay, if anything it re-affirmed that we were good enough to beat them. That maybe would have let a bit of doubt creep into their minds as well. We knew that if we went and played them again with the same intensity that we’d be there and thereabouts. A kick of a ball was in it at the end, and that could have gone to Slaughtneil just as easily. Fortunately, we came out on the right side.

“Beating them means nothing if you go to the semi-final and lose, you’d be devastated not to get through that stage. It probably would have lifted a number of other teams in the Championship knowing that Slaughtneil weren’t there, as there wouldn’t have been many other teams that could’ve beat that team.

“We knew that if we didn’t get through and win it after beating Slaughtneil, the whole year would have been a failure.

Thankfully for McGoldrick and Eoghan Rua, they did the business against Ballinascreen in the semi-final before completing the job with a 1-12 to 0-12 win over Lavey in the decider at Celtic Park. He admits, though, that while besting kingpins Slaughtneil would have handed them the uneasy burden of the favourites tag against ‘Screen, the Bann men have always been used to being dubbed outsiders.

Their maiden Derry title came back in 2010, and a younger, more naïve McGoldrick - 24 at the time - believed success would be commonplace for years to come. The dominance of Ballinderry and Slaughtneil however meant that his starry-eyed belief was misguided.

“Over the last six or seven years we’d been given the favourites tag and we didn’t deliver, so that’s maybe why other teams doubted us. We were happy either way, it hasn’t really made any difference in the way we go out and approach the game. Thankfully, it didn’t matter this time and we went out and we won it.

“It had been eight years since we’d won it last, so we never thought far ahead, just took each game as it came. I think it meant more to us this time winning it because we had such a barren period from the last one.

“In 2010 you were young and you think that it’s going to happen all the time, but it did’t work out that way. All the same boys were hanging around and we’d had a lot of downs mostly, with a few ups. We won the Kilmacud Sevens last year and that was helpful coming into 2018. It gave us a bit of a boost.

“Winning this year was feeling of sheer satisfaction. When you’re getting to the twilight of your career you look back on all the things that you’ve won. If I hadn’t had got another championship, I wouldn’t have felt satisfied, so it was a feeling of relief and accomplishment that you’d finally got there.”

Into Ulster then and they faced Cavan champions Casterahan, who had just come off the back of making history. The Ballyjamesduff men finally laid claim to the Cavan Senior Football Championship after defeating Crosserlough 2-11 to 1-13, putting the agony of three lost county finals in succession to bed and collecting their first senior title.

McGoldrick describes the game as “pandemonium”. Eoghan Rua were leading at half-time by six, with Castlerahan reduced to 14 men and having lost several key players. The Cavan side mounted a stirring second-half comeback however, with goalkeeper Jamie Leahy effectively coming out the field to take up position as a stand-in defender.

“They decided to go for broke,” remembers McGoldrick. “They pushed everyone forward and their keeper played fullback, and I was marking him. It was a game I’ve never experienced, and it led to them coming back into it. Every time we were attacking we didn’t know whether we should go for goal or take a point, because it was just wide open! It felt like the game was slipping away a bit.

“It’s a bit like in soccer when a keeper comes up for a corner, it was just bedlam. It was one of those games, but I think now that we’ve experienced it we’re better for it. We showed the maturity to get a few points at the end and see it through.”

This Sunday’s semi-final encounter with Monaghan aces Scotstown will be another stern test for Coleraine. Scotstown won their fourth consecutive title, their fifth triumph in six seasons, when they held off challengers Ballybay in Clones, and have since put Derrygonelly and Burren to the sword to take their place in Ulster’s final four.

Like Coleraine, they have had to contend with Slaughtneil - as well as perennial Ulster behemoths Crossmaglen Rangers - on the Ulster scene in recent years, but they’ll be feeling that this is their year to get their hands on the Seamus McFerran Cup for the first time since 1989.

“We’re obviously big underdogs going into the game, and Scotstown will be feeling pretty confident. Really, we’re just going to have to go in with the same work rate and attitude that we’ve had all season and hope that we can stick with them.

“Scotstown have been in the Ulster Championship for the last four years and have come up against Slaughtneil. They would probably consider themselves quite unlucky not to have won one with the team that they’ve had. It just shows you no matter how good your team is, that’s not always a guarantee that you’ll go on and win the provincial.”

So Ciaran McGoldrick can forget about improving his golf game for the time being, or even hurling for that matter. He only has his thoughts on the here and now, and the next game of football.

“It was the same in the Derry Championship, we never thought more than one game ahead of where we were. It’d be nice if we were able to get through and win it, but we’ll not think about that just yet.”