All-Ireland club SFC semi-finals: All You Need To Know

SUNDAY 5 JANUARY

Cuala v Coolera/Strandhill, Kingspan Breffni, 1.30pm

Dr Crokes v Errigal Ciarán, O'Moore Park, 3.30pm

ONLINE

Live blogs on both games on RTÉ.ie and the RTÉ News app.

TV

Live coverage on TG4 from 1pm

RADIO

Live updates on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1

WEATHER

Sunday will bring further falls of rain, sleet and some further significant snowfall accumulations for a time. It'll gradually become drier from the west later in the day as the area of low pressure moves away eastwards. Feeling very cold with highest temperatures of 2 to 7 degrees and with the added wind chill from fresh and gusty northerly winds

For more, visit met.ie.

Cuala two steps from joining very exclusive list

It's 45 years since aristocratic Cork city outfit St Finbarr's wrote their name into history, achieving a distinction which remains, for now, unique.

The Barr's, already boasting two All-Ireland club hurling titles (1975, 78) and a host of dual players, most famously Jimmy Barry Murphy, beat Ballinasloe's St Grellan's in the 1979-80 All-Ireland football decider to become the first team to win both hurling and football club titles.

The All-Ireland club championships were only a decade old at that stage and weren't afforded the same hoopla. County finals in Cork in the 70s typically attracted way in excess of the crowds that attended the All-Ireland final at the beginning of the following year. The win over Ballinasloe took place in the relatively humble surrounds of Sean Treacy Park in West Tipperary.

In 1981, Finbarr's took things a step further by reaching both All-Ireland finals in the same year - which, aside from anything else, rendered a double-header an impossibility. An insurgent outfit from Kilkenny, Ballyhale Shamrocks, only founded as an amalgamated entity seven years earlier, prevented the double by beating them in the hurling final, with chaps called Fennelly accounting for all their scores.

The Barr's did recover to beat Meath's Walterstown the same month to win back-to-back football titles and would add a third in 1987.

Since then, no club has managed the All-Ireland hurling and football club combo, but the Barr's could have company soon.

Cuala, All-Ireland hurling champions in 2017 and 2018, edged out Ardee in HQ in December to become the 11th Dublin club to win the Leinster football title.

In keeping with the tenor of their campaign as a whole, the provincial decider was a nailbiter. Austin O'Malley's side appeared to be cantering to victory until late goals from Ryan Rooney and Sean Callaghan levelled the game down the stretch. A late free from Luke Keating saw them squeeze over the line, preserving the capital's stranglehold on the Leinster club crown.

Naas 0-11 Cuala 2-10

The O'Callaghan brothers combine to devastating effect as Con sets up younger brother Niall for Cuala’s second goal

Watch live on @Rte2 and @RTEplayer 👉 https://t.co/ZfZ9mA9XTY pic.twitter.com/omkpbY7rDI — The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) November 9, 2024

Their galactico Con O'Callaghan landed 0-04 in the Leinster final, and stands as Cuala's answer to Finbarr's JBM, having been the gilded star-man on their great hurling team of the late 2010s.

The Dalkey club went so far as to rent a direct DART to Killester for their supporters for the county final against Kilmacud Crokes and then a direct train to Newbridge for the Leinster quarter-final win over Naas.

But, as singer-songwriter Lisa O'Neill has noted in the past, there's no train line in Cavan, or at least none that's still operational. A convoy of buses or SUVs will have to do.

Coolera/Strandhill going where no Sligo club has in four decades

Sligo clubs have been strangers to this stage of the competition since the early-to-mid 1980s, with Galway, Mayo and Roscommon clubs divvying up the Connacht title between them.

The St Mary's team of the late 70s/ early 80s had been the only Sligo outfit to win the Connacht title, the town side including Mayo defender and future Sligo manager Peter Forde and seventies inter-county hero Barnes Murphy.

They failed, however, to make it past the All-Ireland semi-final in three attempts, losing the 1983-84 semi to the regal Nemo Rangers.

Coolera/Strandhill ended a 41-year gap for Sligo

Sligo clubs have struggled to make a ripple at provincial level in the intervening decades, only reaching a handful of finals. Curry and Eastern Harps were beaten by Caltra and Corofin respectively in the 2000s. Tourlestrane, utterly dominant in Sligo for most of the past decade, reached just one Connacht final, losing to Maigh Cuilinn in 2022.

After winning a first Sligo title in 18 years in 2023, Coolera/Strandhill initially followed in this undistinguished tradition, going 40 minutes without registering a score in a seven point loss to St Brigid's last winter.

2024 was a radically different story.

Their fourth Sligo title, and their first back-to-back, was claimed in slightly contentious circumstances, with shades of Clive Thomas in the drawn decider. The scores tied at 1-06 to 0-09, St Malaoise Gaels worked a free short and Joseph Keaney pointed, however the ref had already blown the full-time whistle a split second earlier.

Captain Peter Laffey was the hero in the replay, landing two late points in a game where scores came dropping slow, 0-09 to 0-08 in the finish.

They turned over Ballina on penalties in a landmark win in the Connacht semi-final, converting five from five. They still entered the provincial decider as definite underdogs against a Padraig Pearses side who'd dumped out Corofin in the semi-final.

Trailing by five early in the second half, a late burst of points saw them force extra-time, during which Ross Doherty flicked home a goal to put them in the driving seat. In an unbearably tense finale, they clung on to win by a point.

Manager John McPartland, corner forward on Sligo's 2007 Connacht winning side, was mobbed in the aftermath as the subs invaded Markievicz Park.

Errigal Ciarán return to last-four after thrilling Ulster journey

Darragh Canavan embraces father Peter after Errigal Ciarán's Ulster title win

The only Tyrone club to win the Ulster senior title, Errigal Ciarán are back at this stage for the first time since the early 2000s, when the elder Canavan was still the standard bearer.

Tyrone's notoriously democratic club championship has been held responsible for the county's curiously poor record in Ulster, with no dominant outfit and no back-to-back claimed since Carrickmore 20 years ago.

Manager Enda McGinley - also of the pundit's chair and erstwhile RTÉ.ie columnist - saw his team regain the county crown by a single point on a emotional night against Trillick, the late Jody Gormley confirming after the game that he had only a matter of weeks to live.

The younger of the Cavanan brothers, Ruairí, was the inspirational figure in their narrow semi-final win over Clann Eireann, notching 0-09 including an injury-time winner as they booked their spot in a first Ulster final for the first time since 2002.

Joe Oguz palmed home an early goal in the final against Kilcoo but the game settled into a nervy tit-for-tat. The 2022 All-Ireland champions nudged in front early in the second half after Eugene Branagan's second score but Daryl Branagan's straight red card tipped the balance back in favour of McGinley's side.

Space remained at a premium as the Down kingpins fell back into a rigid defensive shape, but a Tommy Canavan free levelled things up as the clock ticked towards injury-time.

Having previously blown a glorious chance to win it, Errigal scored the winner right at the death, Peter Óg McCartan landing a famous effort.

There were strikingly wild celebrations at full-time, though McGinley was emphatic this week that they wouldn't be satisfied with Ulster.

McGinley: "We have to make the very most of it when we're there"

"We've lost two (All-Ireland semi-finals, in 1993 and 2002) and as I said to the boys, the loss in 2002 was easily the worst loss of my career," the manager told reporters this week.

"I was only 21 and I knew sitting outside the ground, as sick as I was, I knew how unlikely it was that you would ever get all the way back again and so it passed, I never got close to it again.

"They are exceptionally precious things, particularly coming out of the Tyrone championship, to try and navigate that first.

"The following year we're sitting in a different mindset and it's a long way back, so we have to make the very most of it when we’re there."

Dr Crokes back after six-year gap

Micheál Burns celebrates Crokes' Munster title win over Loughmore-Castleiney

After collecting their ninth Munster title, the Killarney giants are the old hands in an otherwise novel semi-final quartet.

It's almost eight years since they won their second All-Ireland title, pipping Slaughtneil, after which Colm Cooper announced his inter-county retirement. Their previous All-Ireland win came in 1992, with a one-point win over Tallaght's Thomas Davis in an otherwise benighted year for Kerry football.

Pat O'Shea, corner forward on the '92 side, manager of the 2017 team, and the man who steered Kerry to their last back-to-back All-Ireland victory in 2007 (Jack O'Connor was both his predecessor and successor), re-took the reins at Crokes in January last year and immediately guided back to the summit in the county.

Last October, they edged ahead of Tralee rivals Austin Stacks in the Kerry SFC roll of honour, winning a 14th title, although it didn't look promising for long stages.

Daingean Uí Chuis' moment appeared to have come in the Kerry decider, the 2023 Munster finalists led by three points midway through the second half.

However, a glut of late goals, courtesy of David Shaw, Kieran O'Leary and Evan Looney saw the Geaneys' hopes shattered as Crokes climed another title.

They gave notice of their credentials with a seven-point demolition of Munster champions Castlehaven in the province, although they were aided by Brian Hurley's red card. Tony Brosnan slotted home a penalty early in the second half to open a four-point gap and they eased home from there.

Pat O'Shea is in his third spell as Crokes manager

After surviving a scare in the semi-final against Rathgormack, they made sure of the Munster title with an authoritative second half display against fairytale dual outfit Loughmore-Castleiney.

While less star-studded than other Crokes teams of yore, they still contain county players in Brosnan, Gavin White and Michaél Burns, the latter having recently stepped away from the Kerry set-up.

After the county final win, Burns labelled his manager O'Shea as a "crazy genius" and "the Pep Guardiola of the GAA."

The win over Loughmore-Castleiney gave O'Shea his fourth Munster club crown in what is his third stint as manager. Centrally involved in both of Crokes' All-Ireland victories to date, this month he'll go in search of number three.

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