Trillick victory dedicated to departed members of the community

Following Trillick’s Senior Championship semi-final victory over Dungannon on October 13, an emotional Richie Donnelly dedicated the win to his ill uncle Gerard, a five-time championship winner in his day and a hugely popular figure within the club.

Gerard, affectionately known as ‘Shep’, passed away only a few days later while Trillick were already preparing for last Sunday’s O’Neill Cup showdown against holders Errigal Ciaran.

The old cliché goes that it’s ‘only a game’ but the GAA is so much more than that, especially in a tightly knit place like Trillick where community is everything and family connections weave through the generations like a golden thread.

Siblings Richie and Mattie Donnelly were nourished on the tales of the legendary Trillick team of the seventies and eighties. The ‘aul boy’ (as Richie puts it) Liam and uncle Gerard were central figures on a generational team and the present-day side have continued to fly the red and white flag with distinction.

Three Senior Championship titles in less than a decade tells its own story but the widespread feeling emanating from the club in recent days was that Sunday’s extra-time victory was the most special, the most meaningful of the lot.

The sense of defying the odds played into that surely – not too many anticipated that this would be Trillick’s year, at least outside the camp itself – but there was also the desire, perhaps unspoken but no less potent with that, of honouring the fallen members of the community.

Richie, for whom a strong argument could be made was the player of the championship, commented, “Obviously the most acute one is Uncle Gerry, but we have had a lot of big characters that we have laid to rest in the club this year.

“Our own Auntie Kathleen O’Hagan, Charlie and Vincie Keenan, Eileen Monaghan, Conor McCaughey last November, there’s been a lot of good people from good families put to rest this year.

“Again you just chalk that up as motivation and think the families involved, the community and the club need days like this to lift us because this gives you hope and makes people proud, so I’m very happy.”

He continued, “The elder statesmen who won in the ‘70s and ‘80s, they are in tears here and it is definitely the most special given everything that’s happened and the obstacles that’ve been thrown in front of us as well with injuries and everything.”

Among the walking wounded was Richie’s brother Mattie. The two-time All-Star tore the posterior cruciate ligament in his knee and suffered a broken tibia while playing for Trillick at the Kilmacud Crokes tournament on the weekend of the All-Ireland final in July.

The season-ending injury was a significant blow to the 32-year-old, but Donnelly still had plenty to contribute and was a familiar sight on the sidelines throughout the championship, sporting a full leg brace and clearly deeply invested in the action unfolding before him.

pride

Speaking earlier this week, Mattie expressed his pride in Richie, whose three inspirational points when the game was in the melting pot against Errigal Ciaran encapsulated all that is good about the man.

Mattie said, “I’m immensely proud of him. Our own family has had a few blows this year, but Richie has done everyone proud in the whole family, he has stepped up and filled the void and played football for the two of us.

“He has played the football we need him to play, played the football we know he is capable of playing.

“Obviously he has had his challenges with injuries in the past too, and I’m just delighted for him to express how much he loves Trillick and loves playing for Trillick, and he has done that emphatically over the last few weeks.”

In the days after sustaining his injury, Mattie describes how his thought process morphed from bitter disappointment to recognising that he could still make a positive impression on the team. Indeed, something told him that Trillick would be there on county final day and that they’d go home with the O’Neill Cup in their possession – and that’s how it all panned out.

“It was a massive blow at the time, but I have made peace with that a long time ago. I had the conversation with another friend and team-mate of mine, Mickey Gallagher, who was dealt the same fate, that we had a feeling that Trillick were going to win the Championship this year.

“We just had that feeling, you had that sense, and we just turned our attention to how can we contribute.

“And that’s very much the approach that every player in that squad takes, whether they get minutes or not – it’s how they can contribute for the better for Trillick.”

We’ll give the final word to Richie. An entrepreneur by profession, his articulate nature and all-action performances on the field of play don’t suggest a man particularly beset by self-doubt.

But that’s a superficial reading of the big midfielder, and he explains that he feels a hefty responsibility to go out and do his community proud when the ball is thrown in on big championship days. He can rest assured that he certainly did that on a special season for the men from Trillick St Macartan’s.

“That’s something you carry into these games. There’s an expectation that comes with experience, when you’ve played at that higher level, you need to bring the best of yourself to the group and allow others to follow.

“But don’t get me wrong, within that, there’s a lot of fear during the week thinking what if I don’t deliver, what if I don’t get this right? You have self-doubts and so much turmoil in your head until the ball is thrown in, and you just fall on your instinct. After the first ball, I realise I’ve been here many times before and it’s all normal again.”