Young duo maturing in the Mitchels academy ready for Connacht series

The pathway to a county senior title is never an easy one, and many of the young Castlebar Mitchels men who got their hands on the Moclair Cup this year credit the learnings they picked up along the way in their second team who operate in the intermediate championship.

Attacker Eoghan Hughes believes that the second team has a huge role to play within the club as he explains it offers a route into the senior team. “In the first championship game against The Neale, how many of us from the senior panel were playing for the intermediates that day? There were probably seven or eight of us who have actually gone on to play a senior championship game this year.

It shows how important that intermediate team is to this club because as everyone knows, if we ever were to go down, we can’t get back into the intermediate championship again. It is a very important thing for us in the club to stay in the intermediate championship because it’s such a pathway from intermediate to senior. The boys who played against The Neale that day, didn’t know where they stood and then ended up playing in the senior championship a couple of weeks later.”

In recent years, Hughes who works as an electrician was plying his sporting trade with Castlebar Celtic. A talented footballer, Hughes who featured for the Hoops on many occasions had a lot of good days in Celtic Park. However, in recent months, the 23-year-old put all his focus into this Mitchels group and it’s paid dividends. “Earlier on in the year, I was at a bit of a crossroads of what I was going to do with the year ahead. And I committed to Mitchels because I’d won a lot with Castlebar Celtic.

I felt it was time for a new challenge and I took it on and I think it’s paid off big time. Winning that county title against Garrymore, it’s hard to really explain how big it was for this club and how big it was for all of us.” Onto the Connacht championship, the men from the county town have enjoyed many memorable days out in previous provincial campaigns.

In his early teens, Eoghan Hughes has a fond memory of those days out when the likes of Rory Byrne, Donie Newcombe, Neil Douglas were representing Castlebar. “I was actually lucky enough back in the day, when they were in those Connacht campaigns, I was the ball boy for the team because my uncle Duther Durkan was involved. So I was up with them in the build-up to those games and on the team bus going to Connacht finals. Having the likes of Rory Byrne, Donie Newcombe and Neil Douglas still around, they’ve been there, they’ve done it, they know what it takes to win a Connacht title.

So we’re going to put the heads down and we’re going to give it our best rattle at getting there. “Getting to the final first is the most important part. Obviously we have to get over the game in London first, which is not going to be an easy feat, but we’re going to give it a proper rattle. You could tell in training recently, there’s a serious buzz in the camp and boys are really putting their head down. Winning the county title was unbelievable, but that’s not enough now. We want to go on and do more things.”

Conor Mulroy may be one of the young guns in the squad, but he has fond memories of previous days out with Mitchels on provincial battlegrounds. “I remember one moment that stood out to me was when Mitchels played Corofin in Tuam back in the day. I think there were a couple of us behind the goal - myself, Jack O’Reilly and Conall Durcan - I don’t even think we were watching the game and we saw Dougie (Neil Douglas) coming on and he rattled the net in the top corner.

That’s the one moment that stood out to me and being able to play with the man that lit the fire in my belly to play for Castlebar Mitchels senior team is just huge.” Mulroy also shared the views of his teammate Eoghan Hughes about the importance of the club’s intermediate team, and the young man who’s a student in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick said: “Being able to train at such a high level plays into how you’re going to play when the big games come around.

Like Eoghan said, just building your way up through the intermediate team and then into the senior team is great. “Coming through the underage ranks can only help you so much, but having that extra step from under-21s to intermediate to senior, we’re just so lucky to have it, to be honest. The fact that a lot of us have played under Kevin Filan and Shane Hopkins with the intermediate team and then transitioned into the senior team with the guidance that they gave us has been really helpful too,” he added