Current championship is only game in town for new mentor

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

It reveals something about former multiple All-Ireland winner and current Galway senior football selector Declan Meehan when he says the 2014 championship is now the most important one in his life. Then again, Meehan has always lived in ‘the now’. Those who achieve notable feats usually do.

In the lobby of the Carlton Shearwater Hotel in Ballinasloe, the seating plan for that day’s wedding stands to one side. The tables are labelled using the names of famous composers and authors – Mozart, Bach, the Bronte sisters and Jane Austin – and one suspects if the greats of Gaelic football or hurling had been used instead, Caltra hero Declan Meehan would surely have featured.

After all, his résumé as a player – colleges, club and inter-county – is one to envy. A Hogan Cup winner with St. Jarlath’s College, Tuam in 1994, Meehan subsequently claimed further All-Ireland honours with the great Galway team that secured the Sam Maguire Cup in 1998 and 2001.

In addition to that All-Ireland win in ’01, Meehan won a second consecutive All-Star that season and was named Player of the Year. His form secured his selection on the Ireland international rules team of 2002 and was pivotal in aiding Caltra to senior and, ultimately, All-Ireland club honours between ’03 and ’04.

However, in 2011, fifteen years after he first donned the maroon and white at senior level, Meehan dusted off the satchel, loaded it with the many medals, crowns, awards and tributes he had acquired and rode off into the inter-county sunset. Among the contents were six Connacht SFC medals.

These days, they are hen’s teeth. In Meehan days, they were the eggs – a simple ingredient to bake bigger and better cake. “For a lot of the [Galway] lads this would be their first Connacht senior final and it is a big day but it should be an enjoyable day also,” begins Meehan ahead of Sunday’s decider.

“We probably did take them (Connacht finals) for granted in the past but you know the good thing about this one is that win or lose we are still in the championship. We are kind of approaching it like that. We are underdogs but we are going down there [to McHale Park] to give a good account of ourselves.”

While the ‘giving a good account’ line has been used by many in the past to ease pressure off the collective, given last year’s provincial meeting between the two sides – which saw the Tribesmen humiliated by their rivals on a 4-16 to 0-11 scoreline – Meehan’s words carry a great deal of baggage.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.