Club comes first for Knockmore’s Sarah Mulvihill

IF Sarah Mulvihill was still playing for Mayo now, she’d walk onto the starting 15.

So would former All-Star Shauna Howley. Katie Munnelly, Nina McVann and Róisín Flynn may not start, but they’d certainly be pushing for places had they not stepped back from the county panel this season.

While Westport had five players gone with Mayo for most of the season, Knockmore boasted an arsenal that would beat most junior inter-county teams.

Mulvihill, who sat down with The Mayo News in the TF Royal Hotel and Theatre last Thursday evening, is playing the football of her life at the minute.

Why then, at the age of 29, turn down the chance to play for Mayo to dedicate yourself to a club championship that Knockmore have won twice in the last three seasons?

“I suppose it is a serious commitment. A lot of people would ask that: ‘Sure why aren’t you playing? Why aren’t you training?’ It’s five nights a week, obviously training could be based anywhere around the county and your evenings are gone, your weekends are gone. It’s very time-consuming,” explains Mulvihill, a primary school teacher still based in her native Knockmore.

“I know it’s a privilege to play for Mayo and I’ve been privileged to play for Mayo, but it was just the commitment in the end. I just had a bit of a reflection and with my own personal events in life starting to take over that bit more, and I just thought: ‘Focus on Knockmore’. Lucky that we are a competitive team so I was getting plenty of football. I just thought to take a step away from it. Age wouldn’t be overly on my side either so I decided it was probably just the best thing for me to step away and just focus on the club.”

Even with all the success Knockmore had enjoyed this year, you’d still wonder if she ever regrets doffing the green and red jersey.

“No not overly,” says the midfielder, “because obviously it took a lot of thinking, it took a lot of over and back in my head just chatting to my family about it and that. I suppose I said once I made the decision that I couldn’t go looking back. Once I made my decision and made my mind up I just went with it then.”

Back to more pressing matters then. A county final in MacHale Park where ‘at least ninety percent of the team have never played’ with a weekend break beforehand and a Knockmore team that have never been as strong.

_{Knockmore captain Sarah Mulvihill at the county final press event at the TF Royal Hotel & Theatre in Castlebar (Pic: Pauline Flatley)}

“We just know that we are getting into a serious battle,” says Mulvihill.

Anyone that saw last year’s Division 1 and senior championship finals will know she is speaking fact, not cliché.

“They are obviously very physical, they’re strong, they’re quick, they are a super team,” continues Mulvihill.

“Obviously they’ve a lot of county players, a lot of the players they brought into the panel this year, they did very well. So we know we’re getting into a serious battle and, obviously, I know last year was their first year in the final. They have that experience now. We know that they are going to bring a complete new level this year. We’ll be hopefully ready for that.”