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RTÉ News
14-06-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
'Struggling' Galway need to find a spark in order to overcome Armagh
Former Mayo captain Keith Higgins feels neighbours Galway need to find their "spark" if they are to defeat Armagh and keep their championship hopes alive. Speaking on RTÉ's The Championship, Higgins cited the returning Damien Comer as being the potential level-raiser hiding in plain sight. "From a Galway point of view, maybe he [Damien Comer] has a couple more weeks training done since coming on against Derry," said Higgins. The Annaghdown clubman was an impact sub in the draw with Derry a fortnight ago, scoring one point from a mark. Now as Pádraic Joyce's men look to keep their season alive, Higgins believes Comer could be the saving grace. "He might be a bit sharper, and you might get a bit more impact off him, but Galway just need to find some bit of a spark. "If Galway could get some type of a result here, it could kickstart their season again", claimed the Mayo man. Galway venture up to Kingspan Breffni Park to renew an old rivalry with a familiar foe. The Tribesmen were narrowly pipped by Armagh in last year's All Ireland Final, following a drawn group stage tie. A year prior went the same way in the group stage, while back in 2022, Matthew Tierney was the hero as Galway edged McGeeney's men on penalties in an epic encounter. For Higgins, its finely poised to be another rip-roaring contest. "This is the one that sticks out. "There's been so much talk in the last couple of years in terms of the system and format and the lack of jeopardy, but we're looking at jeopardy here now for Galway. It's a huge game for them", Higgins told RTÉ. "Looking back on the last couple of games, the second half of that Connacht final when Mayo pushed up on them, Dublin came to Salthill and pushed up on them and Derry really went at them up in Celtic Park a couple of weeks ago. "I don't think Armagh will play that type of a game, they will be more inclined to sit back into their defensive shape, so it could suit Galway a small bit more", Higgins added. "It will be a big test but it's great to see the jeopardy finally kicking in." Galway enter the game knowing a win would keep them in the hunt for at least another week, whereas Armagh are guaranteed top spot and qualification for the All-Ireland quarter-finals courtesy of wins over Derry and Dublin. However, if their four previous meetings in the last four years are anything to go by, Galway will need to be at their very best for 70 minutes in order to overcome the Orchard County. Follow a live blog on the All-Ireland Football Championship on Saturday on and the RTÉ News app. Listen to updates on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1. Watch highlights on The Saturday Game at 9.30pm. Watch an All-Ireland Football Championship double-header, Monaghan v Down and Donegal v Mayo, on Sunday from 1.30pm. Follow a live blog on and the RTÉ News app. Listen to updates on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1. Watch highlights on The Sunday Game at 9.30pm.
Irish Times
07-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Galway's Conor Whelan: ‘Mental health is not as abstract as people sometimes make it sound'
He arrived in a stork basket, 10 years ago next week. Conor Whelan had been the best forward on the 2014 Galway minor team but whatever currency that might have held in other years, it looked like pennies on the dollar this time around. Though he'd scored two goals against Limerick in the All-Ireland semi-final, Galway had been torched by 15 points . If there was help for the senior team coming from that group, it surely wasn't coming in a hurry. Anthony Cunningham saw it differently. Whelan was in his first year in college in Limerick when the then Galway manager got in touch. The first contact was early in the season but Whelan declined, not wanting to rush into it. By mid-summer, Cunningham was back asking again. It was in the run-up to the Leinster final and this time Whelan said yes. His first training session was in the second week of June 2015. His first senior intercounty game was the All-Ireland quarter-final in July. Six weeks later, he was starting an All-Ireland final. An All Star nomination came on the back of a career that was three games old, none of them in the league or provincial championship. It must be a record. 'The stars aligned a little bit in terms of getting your chance and going in,' he says now, upon being reminded of the decade anniversary. 'I suppose I stepped up and took it too. It seems like only yesterday really. When I look at the whole 11 seasons, it feels like one big blur. READ MORE 'It just goes so fast. Something that I always say is if you have a season where you get knocked out of the round robin series, you lose a lot those years because you're only playing five championship games and the whole thing is over. You feel like you never really got started at all. 'I've been fortunate with injury, I've only missed one game – against Westmeath in 2022 and I could probably have played if I really needed to push my body. It's been a journey, definitely. Lots of ups and downs.' Conor Whelan of Galway in action during the Allianz Hurling League game between Galway and Clare in February. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho And plenty more to come, most likely. According to the numbers put together by hurling's great annals-keeper Leo McGeough, Whelan has played 57 championship games for Galway. Of the current crop, all the players who have more than him – two Burkes, two Mannions and Conor Cooney – are all over 30. Whelan won't be 29 until October. But if it all ended tomorrow, he'd leave a hefty footprint behind him. He is the fourth-highest scorer in Galway's history, with 16 goals and 129 points to his name. That 177 total means he is behind only Cathal Mannion (8-171, or 195), Cooney (14-199, or 241) and the unreachable Joe Canning (27-486, or 567). The difference with Whelan is that every one of his scores has come from play. He has scored in 50 of his 57 games, has scored twice or more in 42 of them. He's Galway's only All Star forward this decade and one of only three Galway attackers to win multiple All Stars since the turn of the century – Canning and Damien Hayes are the others. By any measure, Whelan is among the greatest-ever Galway hurlers and as electric a player as the game has to offer. [ Opens in new window ] And yet, when you're looking for a lens through which to tell his story, hurling is probably one of the less interesting things to catch the eye. We might start with his PhD, which he is due to hand in this week. Go back to that 18-year-old in his first year in Mary I in 2015, giving a polite thanks but no thanks to the Galway management when they're trying to make an intercounty hurler out of him. Now ask him about his PhD. 'So basically there's 950 Gaelic games student athletes in Ireland,' he says. 'An elite student athlete is someone who's registered as a full-time student education level and they've spent at least one year on a senior intercounty panel. So there's 950 of those registered with the GPA. 'I kind of came up with this concept of administrative intervention where you pair the student athlete with a mentor. My PhD is out of ATU Galway. There were 13 elite student athletes there and I paired them each with an alumnus in the college. So not somebody that was their lecturer and not somebody that was from their sporting environment. Somebody that they didn't know. 'They were to meet every two weeks and just plan out their time for the student athlete. They set goals, both sporting, academic and personally. They were also there for social supports – any issues that come up around assignments, conflict between lectures and training and so on. 'We're all aware of the mental health issues in Ireland and we're all aware of the challenges that student athletes face. But you have to design something that's realistic and something that you think students could utilise. The feedback I got from the 13 student athletes was that, yeah, there's someone there and to be honest, I didn't meet them every week. But if I needed them, he was there.' Whelan's day job is in occupational health and wellbeing with the Castle construction group. His PhD was always going to delve into some aspect of mental health: ever since his cousin, the Galway defender Niall Donohue, died by suicide in 2013, Whelan has continually immersed himself in that world. All going well, his PhD will form a template for the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) and other organisations to use to help student athletes manage their mental health and wellbeing from here on out. Galway captain David Burke, Kilbeacanty chairman Justin Fahy, Shane Donohue, brother of the late Niall Donohue, Galway hurler Conor Whelan, cousin of Niall, and Niall's father, Francis Donohue. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy 'Initially, I kind of just wanted to understand it better. I suppose after my cousin had passed away, I was kind of pushed into that space a little bit and I was like, 'If I'm going to be in this space, I want to really understand it and be able to offer actual tangible advice rather than just regurgitate other stuff you read.' '[Niall's death] is definitely a factor. I've been fortunate enough that I have also done a masters in psychology. I have been very interested in alcohol and addiction and spent some time volunteering in Cuan Mhuire [rehabilitation organisation] for six or seven months. I've always been interested in that concept of mental health and how far out it goes, what it delves into and all the different strands that affect it. 'And yeah, obviously Niall would be a factor in that. Unfortunately, he experienced acute mental illness. I suppose as a direct consequence of that, my view on mental health is that it's not as abstract as people sometimes make it sound. There's always factors in the background that can influence it. 'When you think of mental illness, you always think of acute mental illness, which probably makes up for about 15 per cent of the population. But there's so many other variances within that 85 per cent.' As for his own head, one of the ways he clears it is by travelling. Generally with friends but sometimes on his own, Whelan makes a point of getting away as much as he can in the off-season. Asia, Australia, South and Central America. Purposeful wandering, off the grid where possible. 'I suppose a couple of different things appeal about it,' he says. 'I really enjoy the whole thing of just working hard and doing your turn, your graft, back here and then taking a few months and heading off at the end of it and seeing the place. Just going away and getting a fresh perspective. I find sometimes that you go away too and you have a lot of appreciation for the life that you're coming back to and the things you have in your life. 'And being off the grid – I can remember being on the east coast of America with one of my best friends and you're travelling for five hours on a Greyhound bus and you've no signal or anything. You're not getting emails about work or anything like that. When you're there, you're there. 'That is definitely, in the modern world, one of the things I love the most about it. Just being completely there. Like, I don't buy a Sim card in a new country. If I happen to go to a place that has wifi, great. And if I don't, fine. I'm just here. 'Every day I was over in Japan, I was just literally heading off and my sole objective was, 'I'm going to go here today. I have no idea where I'm going but I'm going to just explore this place and see what's the crack with it.' And you're just going out and you're literally people-watching in a cafe. You're watching people go to their normal work dressed as full anime characters or whatever.' He doesn't train when he goes away. He doesn't bring a hurley. He might get a run in somewhere but it won't bother him if he doesn't. He gets on a flight and leaves his life behind, the better to see what he can see. 'It's really interesting from a mental health point of view to go to these places and see how they approach things. Places like Japan and South Korea have massive challenges around mental health. I couldn't get over how much time they spend on their phones. 'In Japan, they have a suicide forest down around Mount Fuji that's very famous. I was in South Korea and they have a really terrible work-life balance there. Just being in these countries shapes your perspective and changes it.' Conor Whelan of Galway in action in the Leinster SHC game between Galway and Antrim at Pearse Stadium on May 17th. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho And when he comes back, he's a hurler again. He's Conor Whelan, Galway's best and most reliable forward. Micheál Donoghue used 40 players in the 2025 league campaign – only Tom Monaghan and Cianan Fahy played more minutes than Whelan. He's carried his bat through the Leinster championship too – only getting a rest for the last half-hour against Antrim when Galway were well out the gap. 'It's been very enjoyable. Micheál brings such positivity to the group and, in fairness, he's given everyone a chance. He played 40 players in the league and I think he's up around 30 in the championship as well. 'I've been part of groups before that have had that idea starting out but once you lose one or two games, have reverted to type. But he hasn't done that. It's really good to see young lads coming through and getting their chance.' He would know. Not many have made better of it. If you are affected by any of the issues in this piece, please contact The Samaritans at 116 123 or email jo@
Irish Times
26-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Camogie president targets filling Croke Park for All-Ireland final
Brian Molloy has set a hugely ambitious target of filling Croke Park for All-Ireland camogie final day on Sunday, August 10th. Speaking at the launch of the 2025 GlenDimplex All-Ireland Camogie Championships on Monday, the association president called on the public to support their county teams over the coming months. The largest ever attendance at an All-Ireland camogie final was 33,154 at the 2007 decider between Cork and Wexford, though that figure was skewed by the Galway v Dublin under-21 All-Ireland hurling final acting as the curtain-raiser. The first and only time a camogie final broke the 30,000 threshold without hurling on the undercard was in 2023 when 30,191 watched Cork and Waterford in the senior showpiece event. All-Ireland camogie final day last year attracted 27,811. READ MORE In launching a three-year strategic plan in 2024, the association's stated aim was to have a crowd of 50,000 at the 2026 All-Ireland final. However, Molloy has set his sights higher. 'It was great to see so much focus and so much attention on camogie over the last number of weeks but I want all those people to keep their attention on camogie over the next number of weeks and the next number of months so that on August 10th we can fill Croke Park,' he said. 'We've never done it before. This year's All-Ireland final is going to be historic. The best way you can show actual support for camogie is by filling Croke Park on August 10th.' The Camogie Association has changed the format for this year's All-Ireland championships by not allowing any county enter a second team at junior or intermediate level. Cork and Kilkenny contested last year's intermediate final, while Cork also competed in the senior decider. 'We'll have six distinct counties irrespective of how things go because we've changed the structures and we don't have the second teams,' added Molloy. 'I think having six separate counties in our finals is going to be hugely important. So that's my key message, tickets are already on sale, they're up on the Ticketmaster website so there is no excuse for people not to have tickets for the All-Ireland finals.' All-Ireland camogie final day on August 10th will see a triple header take place at Croke Park with the junior, intermediate and senior deciders all on the card.
BBC News
11-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Holders Tyrone beat Kerry to reach All-Ireland U20 final
Defending champions Tyrone reached another All-Ireland Under-20 Football final with a 2-14 to 0-14 victory over Kerry in Sunday's semi-final in Portlaoise. In a repeat of last year's final, the Red Hands raced into a 1-5 to 0-2 lead after 17 minutes with the goal coming from senior panellist Eoin McElholm. While Kerry reduced the arrears to two points, Noah Grimes' superb finish high into the Kingdom net in the final minute of the half left Tyrone 2-8 to 0-8 up at O'Moore Park. From there, Tyrone were able to keep Kerry at arm's length as they marched into their third final in the past four seasons, having also won the title in McCullagh, who scored 0-8 in the Ulster U20 final win over Donegal on 30 April, hit 0-9 for Tyrone while McElholm ended the game with 1-4. Paddy Lane top-scored for Kerry with 0-7. Having gotten the better of Tomas O Se's Kerry for the second year in a row, Paul Devlin's Tyrone can look forward to another All-Ireland decider against either Mayo our Louth, who contest their semi-final in Longford on Friday (19:00 BST).
