GMIT GAA teams were on upward curve until plug pulled

WHILE GMIT Gaelic Games Development Officer Damian Curley says it was difficult to envisage third-level competitions going ahead in the current climate of a pandemic, he admits it was still disappointing when the official announcement was made.

In recent years, GMIT Gaelic games teams have seen an upsurge in their fortunes, with the four codes of hurling, football, ladies football and camogie making great strides. Curley says their 2020/’21 campaigns could have been their best yet.

“Last year was our first year back up Fitzgibbon in three or four years and, I suppose, we were beginning to gather a bit of a panel with a good few of the stronger Galway fellows (including inter-county seniors Darach Fahy, Eanna Murphy, Sean Bleahene and Sean Neary) involved,” says the former Galway senior hurling coach.

“We probably weren’t winning material, but we were certainly going to be competitive. I always feel the Fitzgibbon is about giving a shop window to a fellow, in particular at the time of the year it is played. A fellow might put his hand up and say, ‘look it, I’m fit to play (inter-county) senior hurling, give me a chance’.”

With their Trench Cup football team, under the direction of Killererin’s Tom Hughes and Galway star Johnny Heaney, also featuring a plethora of prominent players, such as Galway’s James Foley, Liam Costello, Ciaran Potter, Conor Raftery and Jonathan McGrath, Curley says GMIT has benefitted hugely in recent years by home-grown players staying local.

“There were cases over a number of years where they (students) were passing our front door, beating a path to Limerick, but most of those Galway guys now seem to be staying between NUIG and ourselves. That is a huge addition.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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