All-Ireland final is the culmination of a whole new ball game for Coláiste Íosagáin

It has come to something when the teacher has to tell the students that there will be no extra work over Christmas. Cathal Pléimeann had to lay down the law after his Coláiste Íosagáin team became the first Dublin school ever to win a Leinster senior colleges football title back in December.

They had beaten the Loreto school from Wexford, taken revenge for the previous year’s final by holding them scoreless in the second half and easing out of sight. Now they wanted to keep it going.

“I had to tell them to calm down. The Leinster final was at the start of December and the All Ireland final wasn’t until the start of March. With 12 weeks between it and the semi-final, there was no need.

“Towards the end of January, start of February, we got going again. But they were all well ready for it. They had been playing for other teams. It was a matter of keeping them from doing too much and maybe hurting themselves.”

There has been an All-Ireland Championship at schools level in women’s football since 1985 but in 30 runnings of the competition, this is the first time a Dublin school has made it to the top of the heap.

Collection of talent
Coláiste Íosagáin from Stillorgan will face Coláiste Dun Iascaigh from Cahir, Co Tipperary in Carlow tomorrow. In recent times, they've have had a couple of years where it looked like the planets might align but they always found one or two too good. This year is different.

The collection of talent in their squad isn’t just confined to Gaelic football. They have a European Youth Olympics 1,500m silver medallist in Síofra Ní Chléirigh Buttner as well as Sorcha Ní Mhaoilmhuire, who followed her home in second place in All Ireland the cross-country championships. They have the captain of the Dublin minor camogie team in Doirean Ní Mhaoleanniagh as well as Dublin senior camogie star Jane Nic An Tuile.

On top of which, they have a slew of Dublin footballers. The reason for such a rich seam suddenly finding its way to the surface is, according to their captain Aedín Ní Dhónaill, down to happenstance.

"We have 15 sixth years on the team this year. It's actually really unusual that the team has so many sixth years on in. Last year our team had one sixth year. It's just a matter of coincidence. This year most sixth years play football whereas last year they just didn't have the interest. It just wasn't a sporty year. But the advantage of it is that most of us have played in Leinster finals and lost them. We weren't going to lose again."

Basketball school
The rise of Coláiste Íosagáin tells an interesting story about the rise of Gaelic games in south Dublin. Traditionally, it has been a basketball school, a regular contributor of players to Ireland underage teams. Still is, to some extent – they reached the All Ireland semi-final this year, with some of the same players.

But the growth of GAA clubs in south Dublin – especially Kilmacud Crokes, Cuala and Ballinteer St John’s – has fed directly into the school. Now, Pléimeann says, they get 11- and 12-year-old girls coming to the school with the basic skills already stowed away in their backpack.

“At first year level,” he says, “you get about 50 girls out trying out for the squad. That’s out of 140 or 150 girls. They’ve grown up playing it and when they come to school, they just want to keep playing it. It’s just a matter of getting them organised – they come here already knowing the game. I haven’t been here that long but I’d imagine that wasn’t always the way.”

It is now though. When it comes to Gaelic games, they’re keeping pace with their brothers across the playground in Coláiste Eoin. The boys lost their All Ireland semi-final last weekend to St Pat’s Maghera but when the girls came up against northern opposition in St Paul’s, Bessbrook, they prevailed. Despite losing a player to the sin-bin in the first half and going 0-4 to 2-3 down, they found a way.

“Semi-finals are always a bit fraught and it was definitely nerve-racking,” Ní Dhónaill. “It was more relief than anything else at the end. You have nothing to show for losing a semi-final if that’s what happens.

“We’re a year stronger this year and we said from the beginning that this was going to be it. We weren’t going to put up with losing again.”