Gareth Devlin of Stewartstown Harps, Tyrone, pictured ahead of the AIB GAA All-Ireland Football Junior Club Championship Final, which takes place this Sunday, January 15th at Croke Park at 1.30pm. The AIB GAA All-Ireland Club Championships features some of #TheToughest players from communities all across Ireland. It is these very communities that the players represent that make the AIB GAA All-Ireland Club Championships unique. Now in its 32nd year supporting the GAA Club Championships, AIB is extremely proud to once again celebrate the communities that play such a role in sustaining our national games.
By Cian O’Connell
A couple of decades later Gareth Devlin is still delivering for Stewartstown Harps.
Back in 2005 Devlin was the talented teenager as Stewartstown reached an AIB All-Ireland Club JFC Final only to be beaten by Finuge in Portlaoise.
Finuge featured Paul Galvin and Eamonn Fitzmaurice, who is ironically involved in the Fossa backroom ahead of next Sunday’s Croke Park clash.
Devlin starred as Stewartstown eventually edged out Clifden at Dr Hyde Park on Saturday so another national decider beckons.
“I think the older you get you just learn to enjoy the moment, lap it up whenever you can,” Devlin says. “This is all new to all of our players - the interviews, photographs, and videos. We have been called into the primary schools the whole year between the county finals, Ulster and stuff. Just getting that support.
“Everything is new, and I keep saying to the lads just live it up because you don't know when these days will ever come back at club level. So it is unreal. The buzz around the club is brilliant.”
That is something Devlin appreciates – the sense of excitement accompanying a critical match. “Three of us on the squad were there in 2004 and 2005, we went to the All-Ireland final, but unfortunately got beat by a very strong Finuge team,” he recalls.
“They had Paul Galvin, Eamonn Fitzmaurice, and Eamonn Breen - a really good team. Now I'm getting more experienced because I was only 16 back then.
“So I was like a rabbit in the headlights, I didn't really know what was going on. I thought winning was normal. This year I'm really appreciating that winning feeling, getting back to winning ways.”
It was a time when Devlin was well versed in performing at Croke Park for Stewartstown and also Tyrone minor teams. “I was actually chatting to our chairman the other day, there was a stage in my life when I started playing with Stewartstown - that Tyrone minor season - when I didn't lose a championship match right through until the All-Ireland club final,” he laughs.
“So you almost think that winning is normal, that this is easy, that it is class. In the last seven, eight, or nine years I was thinking that I'd never win another championship, that I was going to struggle here.
Joint Tyrone managers Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher.
“To get that burden off my own shoulders, especially coming to the end of my career, it has been a great year. Hopefully we can top it off on Sunday.”
Watching the Stewartstown story unfold with a different perspective is nice too. “It is brilliant,” he replies. “The last time I was there it was Feargal Logan putting an arm around me, trying to get me to keep a level head, to get me performing.
“Now I find myself doing that with the younger lads on the team. Honestly I'm just glad I'm part of it because it is a great set-up this year. A new management team came in, it freshened us up, everyone is raring to go.”
Logan quietly provided advice, but more importantly, inspiration, always. “It is exceptional what that man has done for Tyrone football last year,” Devlin responds with genuine warmth and affection.
“For Stewartstown people and Stewartstown football he has done so much for us. He is an absolute legend to everyone in Stewartstown. If you've ever chatted to him he is a lovely, lovely fella.
“Everybody looks up to him. He was there on Saturday, I was chatting to him after the match, he was absolutely buzzing. I'm hoping that he gets down because he always spoke about Croke Park with the club, I hope he gets down to watch the lads.
“If Tyrone win they might have a semi-final of the McKenna Cup on Sunday, Brian Dooher might be on the line by himself.”
Considering the promise and potential Devlin demonstrated during a decorated underage career, is there a feeling that he could have achieved more at senior inter-county level with Tyrone? “100 per cent I could have given it a hell of a lot more,” Devlin answers with admirable honestly.
“I just think personally I had played a lot of football. I started with the Tyrone minors when I was only 15, going on 16.
“So I played an awful lot of football, year after year after year of really intense football. I think if I had come in when I was 21 having not played all of that football I could have given a better account of myself whenever I was there.
“Unfortunately it didn't work out. I do regret it, I definitely do. I feel like I left myself down bigtime, that I didn't push on with Tyrone to be honest.”
Gareth Devlin won an All-Ireland minor title with Tyrone in 2004.
Is that difficult to deal with? “It is life, you have to accept that it is done,” Devlin says. “The biggest pain is that in 2007, I was only 18, I was called into the McKenna Cup squad.
“I would like to say I was too young and naive, I got really anxious around the bigger players you had walking around with Brian Dooher and Stephen O'Neill. It was just like I don't think I'm cut out for this and I walked out of training one night.
“To me that was where it all went wrong because the year after that they won the All-Ireland. I was called back in for 2009, that is when I gave it a year and a half. It wasn't happening.
“The U21 season collided with the senior season that same year, myself and Jason McAnulla from Omagh, we were set out that we were only allowed to train with the seniors once a week.
“So that hampered your chances of getting any league football because the U21 season ran through the league. After that you were playing catch up to get on the championship squad then.”
In the intervening decade Devlin has remained an influential figure for Stewartstown. His class and clinical finishing was perfectly illustrated against Clifden, bagging the decisive goal.
Ultimately a Croke Park appearance looms for Stewartstown Harps. Valuable lessons have been learned along the way following two gripping matches that went the distance. “We had already went through extra-time against Drumlane in the Ulster final,” Devlin says.
“We had to go to the well that day, I went off with a hamstring injury, and we were down to 14 men shortly after it. We played 25 minutes in the second half with 14 men, we eventually got the draw and pushed on.
“We were ahead by three points in extra-time, then Drumlane pegged us back, and we ended up winning on penalties. That extra-time then stood to us on Saturday.
“We knew that fitness wasn't an issue, we finished the game in the last 20 minutes we were well on top of Clifden, but we were just very, very sloppy which we weren't happy about. We learned from it, though, for extra-time.”
When Stewartstown’s need was greatest Devlin demonstrated substance and style. It is precisely what he intends to do at the Jones Road venue on Sunday.
