St Gall's versus Nemo Rangers: Ian O'Riordan talks to the modest St Gall's manager, who believes his side's success may provide inspiration for other clubs in Belfast.
In the days before St Gall's play arguably the most important match in their club history you'll find their manager, John Rafferty, in the sports grounds of St Paul's High School, directing his class of PE students with one hand and holding his mobile phone in the other.
The phone rings only once before he answers, and there's a cautious request for a word about the match on Sunday.
"No problem," says Rafferty, "Fire away."
When a team like St Gall's make an All-Ireland semi-final there's usually an unwritten rule about how to handle publicity - avoid it at all costs. Especially playing a team like Nemo Rangers, the undisputed heavyweight champions of club football.
Outsiders such as St Gall's depend heavily on the element of surprise, part of which involves ducking all shots from the media.
Rafferty's openness is refreshing, and not without purpose. His day job takes him to St Paul's in Bessbrook, just outside Newry, and he'll be forever associated with Armagh, where he played his county football for 12 years and still lives.
But his long involvement with St Gall's has also taken him to the heart of Antrim football, and he knows as well as anyone how that's suffered in the past. Days like this need to be recognised and celebrated as much as possible.
Like any GAA club in west Belfast - and there are around 20 of them - St Gall's has endured more troubled times than good. Their location, close to the Milltown cemetery, once earned them the nickname The Dead Men, but they've now got one of the best grounds in the area and have worked hard for their recent success.
Their only previous appearance at this stage of the club championship was back in 1983, when they lost to Roscommon's Clann na nGael.
Despite Nemo's fearsome reputation (seven All-Ireland's, 13 Munster titles), St Gall's are now seen as Antrim's best bet for a first All-Ireland success. And that's not a case of getting carried away.
This current St Gall's team have won five Antrim titles in succession, and several players have also shared in six under-21 titles.
To get this far they've beaten three of the most successful teams in Ulster club football - Carrickmore of Tyrone, Mayobridge of Down, and finally Bellaghy of Derry. Rafferty is unfailingly modest about his role in it all, describing his main responsibility as "running up and down the line shouting".
Having moved to Belfast to study, he ended up playing with the club from 1989 to 1998, and when Mickey Culbert stepped down as senior manager in October of 2004, Rafferty needed little convincing to take over - even though he had moved back to Poyntzpass in Armagh.
"I'd been helping out with teams over the years," he says, "and I suppose I had built up a bit of experience. The county secretary, Vincent Ward, just rang me one day and asked to come back up.
"I'd known they always had a very good set-up, so I felt it was only right to give something back and see what sort of a job I could make of it.
"I mean they were very good to me as a player. And I still feel I owe them a lot. I learnt a lot about football from the players during my time, and from the people who managed me as well, people like Charlie Sweeney and Frank Dawson. They brought me on an awful lot as a footballer.
"It's a long-enough old jaunt to get to training but you get used to it. And the car has suffered a bit more than I have. But after family and work I don't have anything else in life besides football. That makes it a lot simpler, and I suppose also keeps me out of trouble.
"But I enjoy it, working with the lads. They haven't given me one bit of bother. There's always full numbers at training, and they're always willing to try different things, even if they might seem a wee bit strange."
It takes a few more probing questions to reveal Rafferty's thoroughness as a manager. Like the way he's already brought his team on a dry run to Portlaoise, the venue for tomorrow's game, even trying the accommodation and deciding which players will room together.
"He's got a DVD of each of Nemo's games this year and has consulted several managers on how best to deal with the winter break.
"Like the team, I'm new to this stage of the competition, so I went and talked to people like Mickey Harte and Malachy O'Rourke and Dom Corrigan, men with the experience of being here before, and just asked them about the little things they did, or the things they would have changed.
"So I've no problem admitting I've been plagiarising on that one. I've been trying to copy as much of what other people did well at this stage.
"We're not like Nemo. This is a common path for them. It's an absolute novelty for St Gall's. But for any team to come from Antrim, and to be so competitive in Ulster, is already very refreshing.
"To win in Ulster is even more remarkable. There are so many young people in the city of Belfast, and this provides them with the aspiration to achieve what St Gall's have done.
"So it's a fantastic thing for the GAA in Ulster and also for the Nationalist population in Belfast. They can look at this success in their own city and hopefully go on and copy it. So the longer the success like this continues the better it is for all them young players in the city, no matter what club they're with."
His enthusiasm on the sideline is also one his trademarks, and he still plays club football with O'Hanlon's in Armagh, which leads you to wonder could Rafferty be himself vying for a place on the team.
"Nay," he says, "I'd love it if I was still playing at this stage, but of course the boys keep telling me I'd have no chance of starting. And I mean if we'd had a night of heavy running, and then a bit of a match, I think there would be a wee bit of retribution."
He admits deconstructing Nemo and trying to find a weakness hasn't been easy, but the focus is really on playing their own game as well as they can. If they do that, Rafferty could find himself organising a dry run to Croke Park.
"I just know within Ulster that every time we went out we had to step up our game. That's fairly obvious. We'd had a very tight county final against Portglenone, who really made us play. I felt if we stepped up another 10 per cent we'd be competitive with Carrickmore.
"And that win was very important because the players realised that anything was possible. It's all history now, but we just fine-tuned between games and tried to get a wee bit better as we went along.
"By the time we got to Bellaghy I think we had sorted out a lot of problems. Of course we got some breaks that day, but you always need that, and hopefully the wee bit of luck can continue now for another while.
"But look, we have total and genuine respect for Nemo Rangers, and we could never look any further than Sunday. If we've given our very best when we come off the field at four then I don't think we can have too many complaints, whether that means we're going to Croke Park on St Patrick's Day or back into the Antrim league."
No prizes for guessing which outcome Rafferty would prefer.
