A happy 21st for Stephen Coen

RISING STAR Mayo News/O’Neills Club Stars Young Player of the Year Stephen Coen is pictured with his parents, Liam and Mary. Pic: Michael McLaughlin

Daniel Carey

ALL-Ireland winning Mayo under-21 captain Stephen Coen marked the weekend of his 21st birthday in some style – by winning the Young Footballer of the Year award at last Saturday’s 12th annual Mayo News/O’Neills Club Stars Charity Banquet.
The Hollymount/Carramore clubman’s official ‘coming of age’ came last Sunday.
But though he had to sit exams in UCD both on Saturday afternoon and again on Monday morning, he made the effort to be in Knockranny House Hotel, and left with a big prize. He edged out Mayo under-21 team-mates Liam Irwin (Breaffy) and Conor Loftus (Crossmolina) for the award, which was sponsored by Mayo Sports Clinic.
Remarkably, Coen played in five All-Ireland finals during 2016, winning the Sigerson Cup and under-21 titles, losing the senior replay in October and the club decider in February, and drawing the original senior meeting with the Dubs.
“I suppose the most enjoyable journey of all was the one with my club,” said Coen, who expressed the hope that Westport and Louisburgh would ‘go a step further’ than Hollymount/Carramore had. And he revealed that he had a good feeling about the under-21 competition long before it started.
“I remember coming home one night – it was 20 weeks out from the first [under-21] game against Leitrim. We had a meeting with Michael Solan and John Ginty and Joe Keane, and I went home to my Mam and Dad and said: ‘This is going to be something special here’. We felt that we could go and do it, and thankfully we did, under their guidance ... they led us all the way.”
Having now captained Mayo to minor and under-21 titles in 2013 and 2016 respectively, an Instagram post Coen sent out after the success in Ennis last April signalled that there’s still more to do.
“As young players, we’re really ambitious, and what happened in the past doesn’t matter – we’re always looking to the future,” he told Master of Ceremonies Mike Finnerty. “We know we’ve a lot of potential, but it’s up to us to achieve that potential. You look at the likes of Patrick Durcan and Diarmuid O’Connor and Brendan Harrison, [those] boys have really progressed and made the transition. Hopefully more guys are going to emulate what they’ve done and help the senior boys on, and hopefully we can all achieve what we want together.”