Noel McGrath
**By Brian Murphy **
In this week's 'My Club' feature, All-Ireland winner and two-time All Star with Tipperary Noel McGrath tells us all about Loughmore-CastleineyGAA Club
Located in Mid-Tipperary, the rural parish of Loughmore-Castleiney, comprising the small villages of Loughmore and Castleiney and their hinterland, is midway between the larger towns of Thurles and Templemore.
Founded in 1885, Loughmore-Castleiney GAA Club's grounds are located between the two villages at Cuguilla, 5km south-east of Templemore.
Traditionally a football stronghold, Loughmore-Castleiney are now established as the strongest dual club in the county, becoming the first Tipperary club to do a senior double in 2013.
With 13 Tipperary SFC titles and three Tipperary SHC titles, a Munster Club hurling success in 2007 and numerous Mid-Tipperary senior titles in both codes, Loughmore-Castleiney consistently punch far above their weight in the Premier County.
Central to their remarkable story - and to their recent emergence as a major force in hurling - has been the McGrath family and the club's greatest-ever player, 25-year-old Noel McGrath.
Noel's father Pat, who played senior football and hurling for Tipperary in the 1980s, winning an All-Ireland hurling medal in 1989 as a member of the Tipperary hurling panel, was man-of-the match and scored the winning goal when Loughmore-Castleiney won their first Tipperary SHC title in 1988.
He was a selector 25 years later when his two sons, John and Noel, and four nephews, Tomás, John, Ciaran and Aidan, all played their part in the club's third Tipp SHC win. Noel was also man-of-the-match in the win over Nenagh.
Pat is currently joint-manager of both the senior football and hurling teams, along with Declan Laffan, while a third of his boys, Brian, has joined the squad, bringing to seven the number of McGraths involved at the moment.
While Noel McGrath is the club's most famous son, his brother John is currently on the Tipperary senior hurling team while youngest brother, 17-year-old Brian, played for Tipperary in the All-Ireland minor football and hurling finals last September.
Loughmore-Castleiney men Paul Ormonde, David Kennedy and Noel Morris all won Celtic Crosses with Tipperary in 2001, while Micheál Webster and Evan Sweeney have worn the blue and gold of Tipperary more recently.
For more information on Loughmore-Castleiney GAA, log on to the club's official website.
**
Loughmore Castleiney
**
* **
GAA.ie: Are Loughmore and Castleiney two separate villages in the one parish?
Noel McGrath: Yeah, that’s it. It’s actually a very small parish. Loughmore is one village and then Castliney is another. Both just have a pub, a school and a church. There’s a hall in both parishes as well. It’s all the one parish with two different villages.
GAA.ie: Where are you from?
NM: I’d be from the Loughmore side, but I don’t live in the village. I’d be about six or seven minutes from Thurles and Templemore, in the middle of both. The N62 goes through the parish and heads all the way up to Athlone, which would be the main road dissecting the parish.
GAA.ie: How did you first get involved with Loughmore-Castleiney GAA Club?
NM: From the age of four or five, I was over in the field in Loughmore-Castleiney, training with Eamonn Sweeney, who did a lot of work with us. That’s where it all started and it continued on from there.
GAA.ie: Do you have a big family connection to the club?
NM: My father (Pat) would have hurled with the club for many years and I have an older sister (Patricia) and two younger brothers (John and Brian) who both play for the club. It’s what we do in the family and in the parish as a whole, because we are a rural, country parish so hurling and football are the two things that go on.
GAA.ie: Have the three McGrath brothers lined out on the same Loughmore-Castleiney senior team at the same time yet?
NM: Brian is not 18 yet, but he has already broken on to the senior team so, yeah, we’ve all played together. My sister plays camogie with Drom & Inch, the neighbouring club, because we don’t have our own senior camogie team.
GAA.ie: What are the facilities like at the club?
NM: We have one main field and then a juvenile field. We have a clubhouse, three dressing rooms and a board room. Like any rural parish, it’s not state of the art but it’s more than adequate for us to train in.
GAA.ie: Did you win much with the club at underage level?
NM: At 11 or 12 we were successful, but it wasn’t until minor and U21 that the success really came. The year after me was even more successful, as my brothers and cousins won a good bit more. At senior level then we have two senior football and hurling county titles.
**
Noel McGrath
**
GAA.ie: Does the club compete in the highest grades at underage level at the moment?
NM: They’re competing but it’s tough to keep it going all the time. There are great people working with the youngsters at the moment, bringing them on. I suppose at underage level at the moment, it’s about getting kids interested and enjoying it more than winning. You’d be hoping that the club will remain as strong as it is now over the next 10 to 15 years, and we have the right people working with them which is very important.
GAA.ie: Were there many Loughmore-Castleiney clubmen on Tipperary teams before you?
NM: Paul Ormonde, David Kennedy and Noel Morris were on the 2001 team that won the All-Ireland. In the years after that, Micheál Webster and Evan Sweeney played for Tipperary so there were lads there I looked up to and wanted to emulate.
GAA.ie: When did you first play at senior level for the club?
NM: It was in 2007 and it came from nowhere. I was only 16 at the time. My first game was against Boherlahan in Semple Stadium in the Mid Championship. It just went from there. We had a poor patch in the middle of the year when we got an awful beating from Thurles, but the way it ended up with us winning county and Munster titles in my first year was unreal.
**GAA.ie: It must have been intimidating playing at that level at just 16, though. **
NM: To be honest, I didn’t have time to think about it. It just happened. I was hurling minor with Tipperary and was brought in to the senior team with the club. I didn’t really reflect on it. It’s great to look back on it now, though, having won what we did.
16 year old Noel McGrath celebrates after the Munster final win over Erins Own
GAA.ie: Did you grasp the magnitude of what you had achieved with the club that year?
NM: I didn’t realise what it all was at the time. Luckily, I have won one since in 2013 (hurling), when I was able to appreciate it a lot more. As a 16-year-old you don’t really realise what it means to the parish and the club. It was great to win the county and the Munster club and I was delighted like everyone else but the older you get the more you appreciate everything. Now, looking back, I can appreciate it was an amazing time and something I will always have even if we don’t win anything in the future.
GAA.ie: Did you expect the county title to keep coming after winning one in your first year?
NM: You think it’s great and you’ll win a few more, but unfortunately we didn’t. We won one since 2007 in 2013 and we have lost one as well. You take them when you get them and cherish them because you don’t know when the next one will come around – or if another one will come around again.
GAA.ie: Is hurling and football given equal importance in the club?
NM: Yeah, it’s always been both for me anyway, from U12 all the way up to senior. At senior level, we have the same management for hurling and football so it works out very well in that regard. Thankfully, we have won two out of the last three Tipperary SFC titles so it’s really nice to be successful in both.
GAA.ie: Would most of the players be involved in both codes?
NM: I think in 2013 when we won the double (Tipperary SHC and SFC) there was 12 or 13 on both starting teams. Nearly everyone plays hurling and football and there’s not too may that play one or the other.
**
Noel McGrath and younger brother John in action in the 2014 Munster Club championship against Dr Crokes
**
GAA.ie: Is the club considered predominantly as a football or hurling club or is it possible to separate them?
NM: Traditionally it was a football club until the early 1970s when we started hurling at a higher level. Now, we see ourselves as a dual club. We take both very seriously and wouldn’t consider ourselves one or the other.
GAA.ie: Your status as the pre-eminent dual club in the county was obviously cemented when Loughmore-Castleiney became the first club in the county to win the senior double in 2013. That must still be a huge source of pride?
NM: It was massive. You don’t plan for anything like that. You obviously want to win a county final in both, but to win both in the same year is massive and a serious achievement, one that we can always say we were the first to do it in the county.
GAA.ie: When you consider all the things you have won with the club, which achievement gives you the greatest sense of pride?
NM: Captaining the U21 team to the county title in 2011. It was the first time the club had ever won the U21A in hurling. It was a big one for me because the club had been there or thereabouts trying to get over the line and to be captain of the first team to achieve that was huge for me.
**
Noel McGrath celebrates the 2014 SFC final win over Cahir
**
GAA.ie: You won a second Tipperary SFC title with the club in 2014, beating Cahir in a final played on Stephen’s Day. Can you remind us how that transpired?
NM: It was strange. The football championship was delayed to get the hurling all finished and it dragged on a long time. Ciaran McDonald (Aherlow) went to Australia with the International Rules, which was a great achievement, and that delayed it for another while. Then the county final against Cahir was a draw the first day (December 21) and we ended up playing the replay on St Stephen’s Day.
It was different, but when you get the right result it helps. To win back-to-back county football titles was something we had never done before. Winning a county medal - regardless of the grade – with the lads you grew up with is a great experience and it felt as good as winning any hurling medal that day.
GAA.ie: Given your commitments with Tipperary, do you get to spend much time down at the club?
NM: The lads train most Friday nights and when I am not with Tipp I always go down. If you can’t train I might be there anyway. I love being around the club and the craic that comes with it, hanging around with the lads you live with and you are close to at home.