Former Roscommon manager, Martin McDermott, pictured centre, has had a hugely positively influence on Kilmacud Crokes GAA club.
By Kevin Egan
To those living in and around county Roscommon, Pádraig Pearses is a big club. They have extensive facilities, large membership, field teams across four gaelic games codes, and have an extensive footprint in a large, sprawling rural parish that encroaches onto the town of Ballinasloe.
Yet these things are all relative. Tomorrow evening, in the semi-finals of the AIB All-Ireland senior club football championship, Pearses will take on a club that has a bigger membership (4,800) than most rural GAA clubs outside of would have as their catchment area. This year, Pearses fielded a third team in the adult football championship, representing a positive step forward in terms of participation for the club. Meanwhile, Kilmacud Crokes put out seven teams in the Dublin adult leagues, from Division One to Division Twelve.
The logistics involved in overseeing an operation of that size are off the charts, and one former hero of Roscommon football has been at the heart of it for the best part of a quarter of a century.
Out west, Martin McDermott will always be the man who managed Roscommon to back-to-back Connacht titles in 1990 and 1991, but later that decade, the Oran native and former St. Brigid’s native had to up sticks and relocate to South Dublin. Soon, he was to find himself heavily involved in Kilmacud Crokes.
“I moved to Dublin in 1997 and I settled in the Blackrock/Stillorgan area. My son played with St. Brigid’s up along to minor and he was looking for some place to play football. We joined there and they are a very welcoming club. If you have a GAA background they will soon find you!” he recalls.
“I got involved myself 1997/98 onwards and I’ve always been involved since. Last year I just stepped aside, I felt that I had given as much as I could give and I just needed a break. From ’97 until last year, I was involved on the committees, coaching, management teams. I had a very fancy title for a while, Director of Football, adult football, for seven or eight years. That was interesting I can tell you”.
‘Director of Football’ conjures up images of pulling the strings for billion-pound-valued Premiership clubs, but McDermott explained what is involved in a GAA context.
“The club caters for football, hurling, LGFA and camogie from U-6 through to adult, but when I was Director of Adult Football, that went from U-13 to adult. At those ages, we had from 22 to 24 football teams each year, as well as hundreds below who were in Coiste, the underage GoGames set up.
“Down the country you tend to go every two years. Because of numbers in Dublin, they tend to have underage for every year. The hurlers won the county final as well, they would have 17 or 18 teams and the ladies section is huge as well. The biggest challenge Kilmacud has is the lack of pitches. We have our own, we have links with local schools, but the club spends its time renting pitches from rugby clubs in South Dublin. Most of their training is on rugby pitches from Monday to Friday. You look at the facilities Pearses have, that St. Brigid’s have, it’s fantastic. The land is there, the green space is there. It’s not there around Stillorgan, Kilmacud, Dundrum or Blackrock”.
Martin McDermott, back left, pictured here with several other former Roscommon football stars at a GPA Former Players event in 2013.
As McDermott explains the nuts and bolts of his role, it’s clear that there is a huge amount involved.
“It covered everything from liaising and working with the full-time football coach and football in the club, an ex-Monaghan footballer, Páraic McDonald. He does fantastic work underage and up to 13. The Director would make sure that the young players coming through are in the right grade when they move in to the over 13s section. Also again for the minors, we have them going in to adult teams, tracking them and making sure there are records of their performances and checking to see if they are senior, intermediate or junior, whatever the appropriate level is for that player to play”.
“It also includes getting managers and the management teams for the 22, 24 teams, which was probably one of the biggest challenges. I chaired that sub committee for the guts of 10 years. Regrading players and panels, getting consistency of performance and ensuring managers have the proper courses done. Padraig (McDonnell) spends most of his time training the coaches rather than the actual teams because there are so many teams”.
Aside from that role, McDermott also got stuck into coaching, and has worked with most of the players who will tog out in Kingspan Breffni Park on Saturday evening. Armed with that knowledge, his gut feeling is that this group still has a bit to prove to be seen as equivalent to some of the hugely successful club sides that have flown the flag for the Glenalbyn outfit in recent years.
“Paul Mannion is a huge loss, he definitely won’t play any part, then Cian O’Sullivan retired last year. The likes of Rory O’Carroll and Craig Dias aren’t as young as they were three, four, five years ago. There was a lot more county players and experience in teams going back the last couple of years”.
Kilmacud Crokes will move back out of Croke Park this week, having played their last two games in national GAA headquarters.
“They are achieving a little bit above what was expected of them at the moment with a lot of young players coming in. There are a lot of them that are under 23. They have a bit to go yet to achieve their full potential. Like Pearses, they have carved out results in difficult conditions; in the county final for example, where St. Jude’s had them on the rack. For a long time Portarlington looked a better team than Kilmacud” said McDermott.
“Kilmacud’s best display was in an earlier round against Ballyboden. That was really a 50-50 game and they haven’t really produced that since. Against Naas it felt that Naas ran out of steam, Kilmacud just pulled away in the last quarter. They probably have two years to go to reach the next peak but they will still be difficult to put away”.
And his take on Pearses?
“I was at the county final in Hyde Park, I saw the Mountbellew match and the Connacht final on TV. I was very impressed with Padraig Pearses. They are well-organised, composed on the ball, they don’t panic. Few clubs in the country can boast of six county players, and that’s without Paul Carey.
“I can assure you Kilmacud will give them the height of respect, there’s no doubt about that. I think they have a right good chance particularly with Paul Mannion is out. If he was there you might just say it would tilt the battle in their favour but without him Pearses have a right good chance”.
Three decades ago, Martin McDermott led Roscommon to two All-Ireland semi-finals. This weekend, if another Roscommon team crashes out at the same stage, his fingerprints will be all over it.
