All-Ireland Club Football Championship Final Countdown: Keith Duggan looks at the career of Salthill-Knocknacarra's silent genius Michael Donnellan who is one of the great stories in GAA

When John Rafferty and the St Gall's management sit down to puzzle over their opposition in next Friday's All-Ireland club final, one name is bound to feature prominently in their discussions. Salthill-Knocknacarra is a team loaded with talent but the presence of Michael Donnellan, above all others, gives pause for thought.

The return of the Galway marvel to Croke Park on All-Ireland final day is something to be savoured by GAA fans across the country. Almost eight years after his iridescent performance in the All-Ireland final against Kildare, Donnellan returns seeking a club medal with the burgeoning city team to add to an impressive sideboard collection which includes two All-Ireland medals, three All Stars, a Footballer of the Year trophy, a Hogan Cup medal and county and provincial honours.

Past 30 now, he may not be quite the irrepressible purist who out-sprinted half the Kildare team before landing a point for the ages all those Septembers ago. But as Joe Long, his former trainer at St Jarlath's College, puts it: "You will always see flashes of the youngster in his game."

Injury-tormented over the past three years with both club and county, he tends to play a more conservative game these days. But over Salthill's long winter campaign there has been a clear indication Donnellan's familiar sharpness and vigour - his delight in the game - has returned to him.

"I actually think that he might have the best football of his life in him if he can keep clear of injuries over the next couple of years," said Frankie Dolan, the Roscommon sharpshooter whose St Brigid's team lost to Salthill in the provincial final. "He destroyed us that day. We tried to put a man marker on him but when Donnellan is in that kind of mood, nobody is really able for him.

"His reputation speaks for itself and he has nothing to prove in the game but the appetite is there. He ran the show against us, made the right decisions and seemed to play the game at his own pace."

THE ROSCOMMON BOYS met the victorious Galway representatives after the game and Dolan had a chat with Donnellan, finding him pleasant and quiet as usual. Although one of the most heavily scrutinised players in modern GAA and one of its most absorbing characters, Donnellan has never made a public pronouncement. He has politely and steadfastly turned down endless requests for newspaper interviews and, much like Harold Lloyd in the old flicks, is regarded as something of a silent genius.

That reluctance is attributed partly to Donnellan's genuine unease in talking about himself. It is probably also informed by a general mistrust of the media that was cemented in the bitter aftermath of a 1999 club championship game between Donnellan's home parish of Dunmore and then All-Ireland champions Corofin, in which the referee was attacked. Controversy flared around the young player and if he was hesitant about communicating with the press before that point, he has remained tight-lipped since. As Pat Egan, then chairman of the football board, remarked: "You could murder people and not get that kind of press."

The silence is a pity because Donnellan is one of the great stories in GAA, the most recent in a fabulous dynasty that began with his grandfather, Mick, and continued with his father. John Donnellan captained Galway in 1964, the first of the county's three-in-row years. It was a day that ended in unbelievable sorrow as Mick collapsed and died in the stands during the game.

Galway's period as the consummate football county was so strongly linked with the Donnellan family that it seemed right and fated that the bloodline should continue when the 1998 side brought the Sam Maguire to the west for the first time since 1966. Michael Donnellan was a thrilling player in 1998 and won the outstanding footballer of the year garland. But he was only coming into his own.

A NATURAL ATHLETE and a fierce competitor, Donnellan possessed a flawless kicking technique and he was a compulsive stylist in an era obsessed with closing opposition teams down. There were days when he was literally dragged and bundled out of games. But he seemed to reserve his special moments for Croke Park.

Against Kildare in the 2000 All-Ireland semi-final, on a tense and rainy afternoon, it was Donnellan who calmly floated a 50 through the Canal End posts to win the match. A year later, with Armagh on the brink of a pulsating comeback, Donnellan swiped the ball from the unfortunate Justin McNulty and flicked the most casually brilliant hand pass to the loitering Paul Clancy. The Moycullen man then delivered the winning point. It was a great kick, the grace note to a move that was as unexpected as it was immense.

For Donnellan's intervention was so clean and devastating that it arguably changed the course of modern football. Armagh would have almost certainly have kept possession had they managed to keep the ball out of the Dunmore man's vicinity. The manner of that loss was sickening for a county that had already lost two consecutive All-Ireland semi-finals. And although Armagh had played a storming second half, it was not enough to save the management team of Brian Canavan and Brian McAlinden. Joe Kernan was appointed manager. A year later, Armagh were All-Ireland champions and Gaelic football's ancient regime was smashed.

Kerry and Galway, who had duly claimed the 2001 championship, played out a gallant quarter-final, which the Kingdom won. But the great team that John O'Mahony built would never again be quite so potent and people began to wonder if they had seen the best of Donnellan and company.

When Donnellan entered St Jarlath's in 1989, his speed and skill set him apart within weeks. "It was simply that nobody could catch him," remembers Joe Long.

The 1994 team contained John Divilly, Declan Meehan, Tommie Joyce and Pádraic Joyce, all of whom would become dominant figures under O'Mahony. But it was Donnellan who orchestrated the 3-11 to 0-9 victory over St Patrick's, Maghera. One newspaper declared his the best Hogan Cup performance since his uncle, Pat Donnellan, destroyed St Finian's of Mullingar some 34 years earlier.

"He set up a goal after 30 seconds for Kevin Winston and was playing very well but as a team, we weren't fully clicking," says Joe Long. "So I moved Michael to midfield at half-time. And afterwards Adrian McGuckian from Maghera said that it was the sight of Donnellan soaring over their midfielders time after time that would stay with him. He said that Michael broke their hearts.

"Michael didn't score that day. He had scored one of the most brilliant goals I ever saw in the 1993 final that we lost to St Colman's. And he enjoyed scoring but it didn't matter as long as we got the points. And that was a gifted forward line. He had a great understanding with John Concannon; they were like twins. And he was unbelievable for us that day. Colleges football is open and exciting and in an environment like that, free of cynicism, Michael's gifts shone absolutely."

Long intends going to Dublin to see Donnellan play another All-Ireland final. For all we know, it may be his last.

THERE HAVE BEEN periods over the seasons when Donnellan has been accused of moodiness and truculence, and any hint of tension with management was generally magnified into major newspaper headlines. Managers and team-mates have always defended him to the hilt, however, with senior players like Kevin Walsh acting in the role of guardian, almost, and speaking out to defend the quieter man - particularly when local criticism of Donnellan's form turned virulent in the summer of 2003. And those who know Donnellan testify he is a grand fellow.

"Of course I don't see him as much since he left school," says Long. "But when he called in with the Sam Maguire after 1998 and I said to him if he ever got a second, he might call in with it to my fatherwho lived in Tuam. A few weeks later, he rang and visited the house one night with his mother. The photograph my father got with the cup and Michael became one of his most treasured possessions, really. And I will always be thankful to him for that.

"This was just a month or so after the first All-Ireland Galway had won in 30 years. It was function after function and he could have easily forgotten."

There is, of course, a part of Donnellan's soul that will always be of Dunmore and it is safe to assume there will be a strong contingent from the old parish in Croke Park on Friday.

Although Michael transferred from his native club and his brother John now kicks for Tuam Stars - the older brother contributed handsomely in a league game that consigned the home club to relegation last year - they departed with no ill will. Michael Donnellan owes Gaelic football nothing at this stage and if he can land an All-Ireland medal with his adopted club, it will be a regarded as a triumph for Galway football people everywhere.