‘It’s a quarter-final for Dohenys,’ says Colm O’Shea

FIRST impression, Colm O’Shea is football obsessed.

He lives and breathes it, and has his finger on the GAA pulse. That’s one of the reasons he has slotted seamlessly into life in Dunmanway where football and hurling rule. They are the perfect match, and it was a Dunmanway woman, Geraldine Collins, who led Kerryman O’Shea from the other side of the county bounds to West Cork.

‘I married in here,’ Dohenys’ Kerry import explains on this week’s Star Sport Podcast.

‘We went travelling to Canada for two years, came back and said we’d move to Dunmanway. One thing led to another, I went down to training, played a junior game, did alright and (senior manager) Declan O’Dwyer gave me a call.’

Playing his first game in 2021, this is O’Shea’s third season with the Dohenys and the 33-year-old has established himself in the starting line-up. He’s enjoying his football in West Cork, having played most of his club career back home with Firies in East Kerry. From that base he became a two-year Kerry minor (2007 and ’08). He was in good company – the forward line in that ’08 Kerry minor team included Paul Geaney, James O’Donoghue, Barry John Keane and Barry John Walsh.

‘West Cork is very similar to Kerry, and a lot of people say that. There are always matches on; you’d travel away to Clonakilty or go west to Skibbereen. It’s pure football here,’ O’Shea says.

‘There are fellas I work with from Castletownbere and they are football crazy.’

His brother-in-law, Daniel O’Donovan, now a selector with Dohenys senior team, knows his football better than most, too, so O’Shea is in good company in Dunmanway.

Football always offers up topics of conversation locally, and this week in Dunmanway it’s all about their final Bon Secours Senior A FC Group C game against Ilen Rovers in Drimoleague (2pm). Dohenys have already qualified with a game to spare, having beaten both Newcestown and Bishopstown, and another win will send them straight into the semi-finals. That’s Dohenys’ incentive against an Ilen team desperate for a win to avoid a relegation battle.

‘There is no game taken for granted,’ O’Shea says of Dohenys’ approach.

‘Ilen beat us in the league earlier in the year, we were four or five points up at half time but Dan Mac Eoin kicked them to victory that day; they have super players. We saw them against Newcestown, they are getting better and they are fighting for their lives.

‘It’s a quarter-final for us in one sense because if we win we are into a county semi-final, but we are taking nothing for granted.’

O’Shea is preparing for a battle in Drimoleague. Ilen’s backs are to the wall: they need to win. This will be another test for Declan O’Dwyer’s side.

‘If you are Ilen you’d be saying we need to keep this tight, block up the scoring zone and that they can’t let Dohenys have an open field. We know we need to be on our toes, that we can’t walk the ball into tackles, that we have to manage the game better. If we get the job done and over the line we will have a four-week break for a good block of training, but we’re preparing for a battle against Ilen Rovers,’ says O’Shea who stresses that no-one in the Dohenys camp is getting carried away after their opening two wins.

‘It’s the young fellas driving us. Shane Barry and Aidan O’Donovan, they are both playing wing forward, they came into the team this year, and they come in with no fear. They are a breath of fresh air. They have never been scarred, they have had no big losses, they are the fellas driving it on. They play with no fear, the head is up, they energise the whole thing and give you a boost,’ O’Shea adds. He knows too that another positive Dohenys result on Sunday will have Dunmanway humming, leading to plenty of football chatter, just how he likes it.