Ratoath players celebrate after their side's victory over Summerhill in the 2022 Meath County Senior Football Championship Final. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
By John Harrington
Ratoath’s transformation into a juggernaut of Meath club football and hurling in recent years has been a sight to behold.
They plied their trade in the Junior Football Championship as recently as 2012, and yet this Sunday will bid to win their fourth senior championhip in just five years.
A week after that, many of the same players will don helmets and contest the Meath SHC Final against Kildalkey.
Incredibly, this is the third season out of the last four that Ratoath have contested both Meath senior football and hurling finals in the same year.
Like any other successful club, Ratoath’s rise in fortunes has been build on some very solid foundations.
A population surge in their catchment area in recent years has been a factor, but they’ve maximised that potential by ticking as many boxes as they possibly can to be best in class.
They have an impressive array of sponsors who are also dedicated club members such as Larry McGownan of UNIFLU, Mick Brazil of Fairhouse Steel, Kevin Flynn of FlynnMC, Paddy Cotter of Fleet Connect and Rural Wifi, and Gabriel O’Brien of O’Brien Crane Hire.
But just as important is ‘The Chain Gang’, the WhatsApp group of volunteers in constant communication with one another who keep Ratoath’s clubhouse, three full-size pitches, juvenile pitch, and wall-ball area in pristine condition.
On an average weekend over 100 young children will take part in the club’s ‘Ducks Academy’ for U-6s, and a small army of coaches and mentors look after teams at every age-group from there up.
The 'Ratoath Ducks' U-6 players are visited by some of the club's senior stars.
Ratoath are big on coach education, regularly running their own Introduction to Gaelic Games and Level 1 Coaching courses.
Every year, prospective underage managers and coaches must apply for whatever position they’re interested in, and a committee ensures they’re fully qualified and vetted for the job.
Then there’s the social committee that runs hugely succesful fundraising initiatives every year, and the Healthy Club committee that puts the club at the heart of the community in a variety of different ways.
Little things tell you a lot about a club. For example, this weekend Ratoath will host a cardiac-screening service at their club-house for members.
The fact that they’re about to contest both senior finals in Meath for the third time in four years might be the banner headline, but the Ratoath story is about much more than on-pitch success.
“None of it would be possible without some massive characters, dedicated volunteers, enthusiastic supporters and generous sponsors,” says Ratoath Club chairperson, Oliver Byrne.
“Like most clubs we have a core of people in the club who are always happy to put their shoulder to the wheel, and we’re lucky they’re so dedicated.
“It’s incredible really how far the club has come, and a lot of credit must go to the people who had the foresight to first develop our club grounds knowing that they themselves might not fully benefit from it.
“Now we’re about to develop two or three more pitches on a 10-acre site we recently purchased and that won’t be for the current crop of committee members or volunteers, its with the next generation in mind again.
“We have 56 registered teams in this club between boys and girls so there's a huge demand to service.”
Ratoath's well appointed club grounds.
Ratoath are a truly dual club. Not only are both football and hurling given equal billing, players are encouraged to play both if they can at all.
Ratoath’s ethos is that it’s the right thing to do even if it’s not always easily done at a time when the demands of senior club championship football and hurling are higher than ever.
Football might be the bigger draw in most parts of Meath, but hurling is very much part of Ratoath’s DNA too.
The senior championship they won in ’63 remains a red-letter day, and some of the club’s greatest stalwarts such as Larry McGowan, Larry Kirwan, and Tom Fitzmaurice would be big hurling men who have done Trojan work to ensure the small ball code is as big a part of the club’s identity as football is.
That said, Byrne doesn’t mind admitting it’s a tricky balancing act to successfully challenge on both fronts.
“There’s always a little bit of tension but that’s natural because they all want the players,” he says.
“Their training is monitored very well. They have gps tracking so we know what their training load is every week and it's managed as much as possible.
“On a hurling week the hurlers don't play with the footballers. The rest of the football panelists keep training, but the hurlers don't train for football. And on a football week the dual players don't train for hurling.
“So we manage it as much as we can that way. We're used to it at this stage so if any manager were to complain about it you can say it obviously works because we're going for the double for the third time in five years.
“It is a challenge, don't get me wrong, there's head-scratching throughout the year but we make it work.”
The Ratoath senior hurlers pictured before the 2022 Meath SHC Final.
Ratoath came agonisingly close to completing a historic double at the first attempt in 2020. Their senior footballers defeated Gaeil Colmcille, but their hurlers lost by a point to Trim in the hurling final after extra-time.
It was Trim who broke their hearts once again in last year’s hurling final to deny another double attempt, so to defeat their hoodoo team in this year’s semi-final by a single point was a particularly satisfying day for the club.
Hope is blooming that this might finally be the year they do the double, but it’s tempered by the knowledge they’ll face doughty opponents in both finals, starting with Summerhill in Sunday’s football decider followed an in-form Kildalkey in the hurling.
“It was massive for us to get over Trim in the hurling semi-final because they’ve always had our number, and we we feel like our hurlers are just coming good at the right time,” says Byrne.
“We've got people back from injury, people back from J1s, we're just coming at the right time. And it's the same in the football.
“Joey Wallace was injured for a long time, he did his cruciate at the end of last year, and he came on for the first time this year as a 10-minute cameo in the semi-final. We will hopefully see more of him in the final.
“You'd like to think it's all coming good but they're going to be two tough matches. Summerhill have been beaten in so many finals and are probably sick to their teeth of us and won't want to be beaten again. They've been very impressive all through the championship whereas we limped a little bit against Dunshaughlin and Wolfe Tones.
“And then, in the hurling, Kildalkey are flying as a hurling club at the moment. They're in the senior final, intermediate final, and Junior A Final, so they're on a high at the moment and won't fear us whatsoever.
“But this is our third bite at the cherry for the double. We would love nothing more than to do it.
“You kind of get that feeling in your stomach where you don't want to think about it but we can’t wait for it either. It would be just huge if we could do it.”