By Michael Devlin

“There’s 25 or 26 lads there training every night," James McGivney says. "That’s as much as you’re going to get out.”

Anyone reading into the Leinster Club Senior Football Championship final this weekend will see a common theme in the build-up.

A lot is known about Kilmacud Crokes; two-time All-Ireland Senior Club Football champions, the from Stillorgan giants have a membership of approximately 4,800, field over 130 15-a-side teams at all levels across football, hurling, ladies football and camogie, and are widely recognised as ‘the biggest club in Ireland’.

But what of their opponents on Sunday, Mullinalaghta St Columba’s? What of the Midlands minnows who share a parish with Gowna across the Cavan boundary line, and have created history by becoming the first team from Longford to reach Leinster decider?

Mullinalaghta are out to defy the odds. A community of less than 400 people, a club membership about four per cent of that of Crokes, bidding to upset the Dublin giants.

“Yeah, we know the odds are stacked against us,” accepts McGivney. “The bookies don’t usually get it wrong either and they’d have Kilmacud as strong favourites. All we can do is control what’s in our hands, and that’s getting the best possible performance out of ourselves. Hopefully we can do each other proud.”

While Crokes have a huge pool of resources to draw from, Mullinalaghta aren’t as privileged. They are a small, tight-knit rural community, and are rightly proud of it. They’ve a tradition where each family in the parish take it in turns to lay out a spread of tea and sandwiches after everyt training session. “That’s how united it is. It’s fairly unique in that way,” says McGivney.

Family is a predominant theme when you look across the Mullinalaghta team-sheet. James’ brother, David, plays midfield. There’s the two Rogers’, goalkeeper Robert and half-forward Gary, and the two Mulligans in the half-back line, Shane and Francis. Patrick and Brendan Fox operate at full-back and full-forward respectively.

Then there is the five McElligott boys, sons of Dan McElligott, a native of Kerry who McGivney believes has “probably had an impact on every single one of the players in the club.”

“He would have taught us from Under 10 up, through schoolboy. That’s the most important time in anyone’s career is getting the techniques right and Dan McElligott would have definitely been one of the lads that was instilling that in all of us.

“You’ll see Dan at all the Longford games with a ‘Mullinalaghta On Tour’ flag. That’s him. Dan is a serious supporter. He does video work as well on all our games. He takes a back step and lets the coaches at it.”

McGivney scratches his head and wonders, “I’m definitely missing someone else, too. There's a lot of brothers on the team.”

Every young fella in the area is kicking ball for Mullinalaghta, because they have no other choice. Football is the one thing pulling them in, keeping them in the village, and while they just about have the numbers to make up a senior panel, the buy-in from each player keeps the tight group intact. A lot of it also comes down to team manager Mickey Graham.

“Football is the only thing keeping the community together. If there wasn’t football, there’d be a lot of lads moving I’d say. It’s been great commitment; all the players have bought into it for the last three or four years. We can’t ask for anymore from any of the other guys.

“We’ve around five or six lads living in Dublin, we’ve two lads in college down in Limerick, and a lad in college in Athlone. Look it, it’s very easy going to training when you’re winning, everything is a lot easier. Win or lose, those boys will go to training the following week.

“That’s one thing Mickey has brought to the table, he’s made everything real enjoyable. You’re going to training with a smile on your face and you’re leaving with a smile on your face. It makes everything easier for lads travelling down for a good session.”

The Longford forward remembers Graham’s first meeting with the squad three years ago. Before his arrival, the Laurels hadn’t won a county title in 66 years, but Graham, recently appointed to the Cavan senior post for 2019, could sense there was potential in a young, ambitious Mullinalaghta side keen to end that long drought.

“He said these opportunities come in cycles of years. He had one with Cavan Gaels and he said, “your opportunity is coming now, and it’s up to you to take it”. We all bought into the cause that night and we worked really hard.

“Most trainings we came off the field, tight able to breath, tight sleep at night, you’d be that tired rolling and twisting in aches and pains. We’re just starting to see the rewards of it now.”

The players delivered on Graham’s pledge in 2016 and more, this season becoming Longford Senior Football Champions for the third year in succession after a fully deserved victory over neighbours Abbeylara. That rivalry however is not bitter.

Mullinghata amalgamate at youth with Abbeylara to form Northern Gaels, but with both clubs going their own way at senior level, the St Columba’s have been the scourge of their underage affiliates, beating them in each of those three county finals.

“It’s not easy seeing your mates losing or whatever, but we’ve so much respect for Abbeylara,” says McGivney. “We were used to success in Longford, but when we went on our own it took us a while to get on our feet, that step from minor up to senior.

“There were a few players gone, so it took us a while to find our feet, and when we did we started performing very well and everything else started to fall into place then It took us a few years to get going.”

McGivney’s pre-match ritual will almost certainly not chime with any of the Kilmacud players, and not many players at all for that matter. A full-time farmer, he was forced to take time off playing duties with Longford during the league when an emergency arose at the height of calving season.

“One night, we were training up in Dublin and that’s like a five or six hour round trip for me. That’s a lot of time away, and especially in the calving season. That particular night, there was a dead animal because there was no one on the farm. So that really pushed me to take a break for a while until the calving season calmed down.

“Before club games on a Sunday morning, at 10 or half 8 or whatever time, you have to be out on the field two or three hours before that to get your jobs done. Same with the football games on a Sunday.

“Before the Leinster final this year, me and my brothers will probably do around two hours outside that morning, go to the game, come back home and do another two hours in the evening time. Go up then and enjoy a few pints or whatever!”

The Laurels eliminated Offaly champions Rhode in a tense 1-6 to 0-7 encounter in the quarter-final, before turning on the style to blow away Carlow’s Eire Og’s by 18 points to create history by becoming Longford’s first Leinster Championship finalists.

In the previous two provincial campaigns, St Vincent’s and St Loman’s Mullingar prevented Mullinalaghta from making the final stage. McGivney believes though that there is a lot to be taken from those past performances that can help his band of brothers create one of the 2018 GAA season’s biggest shocks on Sunday.

“We played very well against Loman’s last year, we were just unlucky to lose to them. We felt we did play well against Vincents the first year as well, we just ran out of legs in the end. We played very well against Rhode this year.

“We have experience and we have performances in us, we just have to perform on Sunday.”