The Mullinavat senior footballers that will contest the AIB Leinster Club Intermediate football semi-final on Saturday.
By John Harrington
Gaelic football has long shivered in the shadow of hurling in Kilkenny, but 2022 has produced a few chinks of light for the big-ball game on Noreside.
Back in July the Kilkenny county footballers won the All-Ireland Junior Championship, and now Kilkenny club champions Mullinavat are impressing in the AIB Leinster Intermediate Club Championship.
They’ve already beaten Offaly champions Bracknagh and Westmeath champions Shandonagh and on Saturday play Wexford champions Fethard St Mogues in the provincial semi-final.
Mick Malone has been a central character in both of these stories. He captained the Kilkenny team that won the All-Ireland Junior Championship and is also Mullinavat’s captain.
A former Kilkenny senior hurling panellist under Brian Cody, he’s arguably an even better footballer and has scored 3-6 in Mullinavat’s two matches to date in the Leinster championship.
He’s part of a generation of Mullinavat dual players who have really elevated Gaelic football in the club, winning four county titles in the last five years.
“As long as I can remember I suppose we always had an interest in football,” says Malone. “There's a lot of lads who enjoy playing it, I suppose. They put in an effort.
“Our manager (Michael Aylward) has always been there as well for the last couple of years. Every time we got a chance to train football he'd be there to put trainings on for us.
“We're fortunate enough too that our hurling manager for the last couple of years facilitated football training earlier on in the season when the football league and championship is run off in Kilkenny.
“So we're lucky that way as well, we always got to put in a few trainings. Enough lads in the club take it seriously, we're fortunate enough that way. We've a good few involved too with the Kilkenny football team.
“I think that brings on lads a lot as well. You have other clubs and they only barely play the club games that are there that come up for them.
“But the fact that there are so many of us involved in Kilkenny football, we're playing a good bit of football throughout the summer as well, so it's not just a few club games that we get.”
Kilkenny captain Mick Malone holds the cup aloft as he celebrates with teammates after their side's victory in the GAA Football All-Ireland Junior Championship Final match between Kilkenny and New York at Croke Park in Dublin.
A total of 11 Mullinavat players were part of the Kilkenny panel that won that All-Ireland Junior Championship Final back in July, and it was a special moment for Malone and all of his team-mates to lift some silverware in Croke Park.
“That was brilliant altogether,” he says. “Whenever you get a chance to play in Croke Park no matter code or what grade it is, it's always going to be something special. Even from the outset, when we started playing this year it was always said that the aim was to get to Croke Park. The chance to go and play in Croke Park was there and everyone was just looking forward to that throughout the year.
“I know we had the semi-final to get over first, but once we got there it was just brilliant. I don't know how many people were in the stadium for our match, but there seemed to be a brilliant atmosphere even though there was probably less than a quarter of the attendance for the main game after, the Dublin-Kerry game.
"I'd love to experience what it would be like in a full capacity stadium if it was that good with the few we had there.
“It meant a lot because I’m playing with the Kilkenny footballers for a good few years now. I was involved with the u-21 football team and from then was involved with the senior team apart from a couple of years when I was in Australia.
“Every year there's always new lads, but there is a core of players who have always been there and a couple of management lads have always been putting a lot of effort into it.
“It was brilliant for them more than anyone because they came from the time when Kilkenny played in the National Football league and every weekend was going out and just ending in big defeats for us. It was hard enough to take and hard enough to stay going through that.
“I suppose to gain a reward at the end of it all was brilliant altogether. The likes of JJ O'Sullivan who has been our goalie for as long as I've been playing, it's brilliant for the likes of him and JJ Grace who was involved as a player when he started off and is now the team trainer.
“It's nice to get some sort of a reward after all of those years putting in such an effort.”
Mick Malone in action for Mullinavat against Shandonagh in the AIB Leinster Club Intermediate Football quarter-final.
Malone sees plenty of potential in Kilkenny football, but believes it will be difficult for the county to make major strides for as long as players with natural footballing ability are discouraged to put an equal emphasis on both codes.
“Some lads just have no interest in it, but I like the variety,” he says. “It's something different after the hurling is over. Even in pre-season when you have a few football games to look forward to, it's not all just the hard slog of pre-season hurling training in the winter months. It's always something nice to look forward to.
“There are plenty of good footballers in Kilkenny. At club level you'd be playing against different clubs and there are always players that clearly stand out. It's trying to get them all together and keep them together.
“Most lads would pick hurling over football. And maybe some of them wouldn't if there wasn't so much pressure on them to do that. They might be getting pressure from club managers to pick hurling over football training, even though it might be coming into football championship.
“By all means there are good footballers in Kilkenny. I suppose the likes of Paul Murphy playing with the Kilkenny footballers this year and Ciaran Wallace, those few boys that came in who were involved with the Kilkenny hurling panel previously.
“It was just good to see those hurling lads coming to play football and caring about it. It was good for the promotion of Kilkenny football.”
Mick Malone of Kilkenny shoots to score a goal during the 2022 GAA Football All-Ireland Junior Championship Semi-Final match between Kilkenny and London at the GAA National Games Development Centre in Abbotstown, Dublin.
This year isn’t the first time that Mullinvat have proven they can compete at a provincial level.
Back in 2019 they reached the AIB Leinster Club Intermediate Football Final against Louth champions Mattock Rangers and looked on the cusp of pulling off a shock win when they went five points ahead in the first-half.
Mattock eventually came good in the second-half to run out six-point winners, and the experience of losing that match makes Malone and his team-mates all the more determined to go one step further this year.
“God, it would be brilliant, yeah,” he says. “The Mattock Rangers match was disappointing the way it finished in the end. We went so well in the first half but they reduced the gap just before half-time and then pushed on in the second-half to win it.
“If one or two things went differently in the second-half we could have come out on top. That year no-one thought we'd be in a Leinster Football Final. Every match we got was just a bonus.
"When you get there it's still hugely disappointing when you lose it. You'd have took the hand off anyone to get into a Leinster Final at the start of the year. But when you're there you want to do nothing but win it.
“We’re not looking beyond this semi-final against Fethard but we do see the opportunity again there this year.
“The fact we got so far in 2019 we can see that it is possible to do. I suppose it shows others that it's possible for Kilkenny football teams to come out and get a decent run in Leinster as well.”
