By John Harrington

It’s testament to the mentality of Rathnew GAA club that they seemed less surprised than everyone else about their shock victory over reigning Leinster champions St. Vincent’s in the provincial football quarter-final.

When interviewed after the game, club chairman Robert Dignam simply said, “We knew they had it in them.”

They’ve never been short of self-esteem in Rathnew and that’s because they’ve no reason to be.

A haul of 15 senior county championships in the last 22 years has a way of bullet-proofing your confidence.

Robert Dignam’s son Peter is both the club’s secretary and senior team goalkeeper, and believes that the club’s footballers have deeply rooted will to win that makes them a formidable force.

“I think it's hardwired,” he told GAA.ie “You could see two lads in Rathnew playing pool and the blood vessels would be bursting on their necks trying to beat one another and they'd probably be related!

“So, it definitely has to be hard-wired. The success in the village through darts, pool leagues, soccer, everything.

“We've been successful and once you're successful you're hungry for more of it and I think that's probably where we're coming from.

“You're growing up in houses with fathers or brothers who have won a couple of medals.

“Like, my own brother (Alan) would have played Irish 'A' rugby, played at a high standard, so the standards are set by the ones that go before you and then you just have to try and reach them, if not surpass them.

“That's where the winning mentality comes into it.”

On the three previous occasions that St. Vincent’s competed in the Leinster Championship (2013, 2014, & 2016), they won it.

Yet despite the impressive pedigree of the Dublin champions, Rathnew saw no reason why they couldn’t take them down a peg or two.

There was no fear, no blanket defence. Right from the throw-in they attacked St. Vincent’s and by the time the final whistle blew they were very worthy winners.

“In the modern era you can get a good look at people nowadays and we had seen their county final,” says Dignam.

“We thought that Ballymun stood off them so we thought why don't we try the other tactic because it didn't work for them.

“It probably wouldn't have worked for us anyway if we'd tried a different tactic because we don't do it (in Wicklow). We would have been found out if we tried to flood defence. We would have been picked off, I think.

“We stuck to our guns, we played nice attacking football and had a really good day at the office. We'd only been playing for 20 minutes or half an hour in most games, but on the day we were well worth the win.

“Obviously at the start only a few of you think you will win, maybe only the 20-odd lads involved with the panel, but, no, we had a good little belief in ourselves that we could do it. It shone through anyway.”

Within Wicklow, Rathnew wouldn’t exactly be every other club’s favourite cup of tea.

It’s not just the fact that they’ve been so dominant in the county over the course of the past couple of decades, their physical style and ruthless approach to winning has also put some noses out of joint along the way.

But thanks to that win over St. Vincent’s, club rivalries have been forgotten until next year at least and the whole county is now behind Rathnew as they prepare for Sunday’s AIB Leinster Club SFC semi-final against Kildare champions Moorefield.

“As secretary of the club I'm getting texts and emails from everybody,” says Dignam. “Clubs that you'd be tooth and nail with most of the year would be sending you good luck and it would be genuine.

“Even after the Vincent's game lads were coming up and patting you on the back, you didn't know who they were. They weren't necessarily wearing Rathnew tops but you knew they were Wicklow people.

“It's been brilliant, everyone’s getting behind the lads and please God the county does get behind us and we can make Aughrim a really, really tricky place to come to. Because it'll only build to the urban legend that Aughrim is a really hard place to go.

“If we can take the Moorefield scalp we'll build on that down in Aughrim.”

The win over St. Vincent’s was savoured, but it wasn’t as wildly celebrated by the Rathnew players as much as it surely was by their supporters.

They reconvened for a recovery session the following Monday evening, by which time their focus had already narrowed towards the task of beating Moorefield.

“The underlying message is that there was nothing given out, there was no medals, no trophy or anything handed out,” says Dignam.

“As Rathnew people we enter competitions to win them and once we qualified for Leinster our ambition was to win it and, please God, we will.

“Again, we know a little bit about Moorefield, we've played them, they beat us a couple of years ago in Leinster.

“We think we can probably get at them in some ways as well. Our main problem is that we've five starters hurling with Glenealy who are in the Intermediate Final and fitting time into working on these things is tough because lads are training with their own club and then they're tired and it's hard to get a full team out to work on a few little things.

“We'll give it everything anyway. We'll replicate the desire and hopefully the performance will follow."

16 years have passed since Rathnew’s last and only ever Leinster Club title back in 2001, yet Dignam is one of four survivors on the current team from that panel along with Leighton Glynn, Stephen Byrne, and Damien Power.

“It's funny the memories from the match, you piece them together after chatting to lads in the pub ten years later,” says Dignam.

“I don't know if it's like Chinese whispers and if half the stuff actually happened. But I remember the celebrations coming back on the bus, coming into the village and it was just a complete mass of bodies.

“There was fireworks. I remember there was a Christmas light coming out at the time and it was in red and green (Rathnew’s club colours).

“Ah it was brilliant. Listen, to get back there would be brilliant and we've had chances to get back there.

“The luck we maybe got in 2001, we didn't get in other championships. You can't get lucky all the time.

“But that was some trip, the matches and there was replays...It was a great, great journey. It was the journey more than the matches, because there was a good few away matches in it. But winning it was brilliant.”

They haven’t been back to a Leinster Final since, but Rathnew won't lack for confidence going into Sunday’s semi-final against Moorefield.

Because they never do.