Club dream shone brighter for proud townie Geaney

What a three months it has been for Daingean Uí Chúis.

Ending a long wait to be crowned Kerry senior football champions and then provincial glory. Conor Geaney fired over a two-point score at the death to defeat St Finbarr's, this after trailing by seven at the break.

An All-Ireland semi-final beckoned.

By the banks of the Lee, Ballyboden St Enda's led by ten points shortly after the break. It was looking good for the Dublin outfit but they hadn't counted on another resurrection from Daingean Uí Chúis. Paul Geaney was sprung from the bench and his influence meant the scoreboard was now ticking over at a faster rate. The deficit was narrowed and then we had parity. Tom O'Sullivan also contributed and in extra-time it was the men from Kerry who held sway. A deserved victory in the end.

And now another 60 minutes stands between them and All-Ireland glory. St Brigid's from Roscommon are their opponents at Croke Park on Sunday.

Kerry clubs have the intermediate and junior titles in the bag. Can Daingean Uí Chúis complete the hat-trick? And we can't forget Jessie Buckley's Golden Globes success, another piece of good news that reflects well on a proud county.

"We love pushing our own down in Kerry," remarked Mikey Geaney, when speaking at the launch of the AIB GAA hurling and football All-Ireland Senior Club Championship finals.

"It's been a crazy week and all that success has been well documented; hopefully we can cap it off at our end with victory."

At 36, Geaney is one of his club's elder statesmen, an All-Ireland winner with the Kingdom in 2014. That medal, not his most prized possession it would seem. It was always about the home place, that town "an hour from everywhere" as he says himself.

Reflecting on his career to date, he added: "I was lucky enough to have been involved with Kerry for ten years, not the most glittering career but I still won an All-Ireland and got to experience that, something I'm very proud of.

"I was born and raised in Dingle; my parents are both townies. I grew up dreaming of winning county championships with Dingle rather than playing with Kerry, it just wasn't something on my radar. The big difference is when you win a game and you know everyone you meet afterwards, the people that have played a part in your development as a footballer.

"From October onwards when you see county championship final season kicking off everybody can relate to it, everyone has a club they can play with and dream of days like Sunday."

Winning the Kerry title in the autumn was a scaling of the summit for Daingean Uí Chúis, coming after three final defeats since 2012. There was a victory in Kerry club championship in 2023, which ultimately saw them represent the county in Munster, where they lost to Castlehaven after a penalty shootout in the final.

"When you've lost three county championship finals, you know nothing else, everything beyond that is beyond the periphery"

And now the club finds itself on the biggest stage. January, rather than St Patrick's Day.

Maybe true to his nature, Geaney is playing the achievement down.

"Without being short about it, this has never been on our radar," he remarked. "I'm not saying that we never believed it but we were so tunnel-visioned on winning a county final.

"When you've lost three county championship finals, you know nothing else, everything beyond that is beyond the periphery.

"Two years ago we got to a Munster final through the back door and so that gave us a small bit of experience of the Munster campaign."

And winning is a habit, to quote that well-worn cliche.

"It would be easy after winning a first county for motivation to be zapped a small bit but there was the motivation for wrongs to be righted after the loss on penalties.

"That kept us going, kept us motivated. It has snowballed since. Obviously the way we won the last two games has given us the buzz we needed."

And there is a buzz now, with Geaney predicting that there won't be a "massive crowd" travelling from west Kerry but the support will "definitely be the the loudest and definitely the most colourful".

Against St Finbarr's and Ballyboden St Enda's, Daingean Uí Chúis came good at the death, with Geaney simply putting their comebacks down to the side throwing caution to the wind, or to quote the late Mick Doyle 'give it a lash'.

"When you get to that stage when you are seven or eight points down with 20 minutes or so to go, tactically there is not that much to do only have a go at it. You might as well be hung for a sheep as hung for a lamb!

"You have to have a crack at it the, put a bit of pressure on.

"We don't plan to go six or seven points down. But we know we are going to have to start better on Sunday against a side with a good pedigree - but we also know we can finish strongly.

"There was never a stage in the last two games where we panicked. We did kick a few high balls in in the semi-final but that was just to get us going."

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