Niall Ó Ceallacháin is happy to keep several sliotars flying in the air for as long as possible as he continues to juggle his role managing both the Na Fianna and Dublin senior hurlers.
Na Fianna’s victory over Clough Ballacolla last Sunday ensured Ó Ceallacháin will be double-jobbing for at least one more week.
However, he will be quite content if the demanding workload continues all the way to January 18th-19th – the weekend of the All-Ireland club finals at Croke Park.
“It’s busy, there’s a lot going on day to day, but you could have worse problems in life,” says Ó Ceallacháin.
With intercounty teams not allowed return to collective training until December 7th, the time demands haven’t ramped up fully just yet.
But Ó Ceallacháin, who is chief operations officer for Clúid – an approved housing body providing social and affordable homes – has been assembling a Dublin squad and planning the logistics around his maiden season in charge since his appointment in early September.
His management team includes David Curtin (Ballyboden St Enda’s), Donal McGovern (Kilmacud Crokes) and Nigel O’Hara (Na Fianna).
However, Ó Ceallacháin is planning without Eoghan O’Donnell for 2025, with the former Dublin hurling captain instead opting to commit solely to the capital’s footballers next season.
O’Donnell had a brief spell with the Dublin footballers in 2022 after the hurlers were knocked out of the Liam MacCarthy competition. He featured off the bench in Dublin’s All-Ireland SFC quarter-final win over Cork that summer, but for the 2023 campaign the Whitehall Colmcille man had returned to the hurling squad.
O’Donnell’s absence is a setback for the hurlers but Ó Ceallacháin is expected to add fresh faces to the dressingroom in a bid to rejuvenate the small-ball game in the capital.
Dublin’s last Leinster senior hurling championship triumph was in 2013. Their most recent National Hurling League success was achieved in 2011 so the last decade has been underwhelming.
On the club front, Crumlin (1979) and Cuala (2016, 2017) are the only outfits from the capital to have previously won the Leinster club senior hurling championship.
But Na Fianna are considered 5-4 favourites with some bookmakers to become the third Dublin side to win the club crown. With Kilkenny champions Thomastown suffering a shock exit at the hands of Castletown Geoghegan in a quarter-final, the competition is wide open for the four teams left standing.
No club has ever been crowned senior football and hurling club champions in Leinster but Na Fianna could make that breakthrough over the coming weeks. The Mobhi Road side won the senior provincial football championship in 1999.
Wexford champions St Martin’s stand in the way of the Na Fianna hurlers next Sunday at Parnell Park, 3pm.
The winners of that semi-final will advance to the Leinster final at Croke Park just six days later on Saturday, November 30th against either Westmeath’s Castletown Geoghegan or Offaly’s Kilcormac Killoughey.
The All-Ireland club senior hurling semi-finals will take place on the weekend of December 14th-15th with the decider scheduled for the middle of January.
The Dublin hurlers will begin their National Hurling League campaign the weekend after the club finals, with the intercounty season officially throwing in on January 25th-26th.
But Dublin, like most counties, are expected to play several challenge matches in January in advance of the league commencing.
Before all of that though, Ó Ceallacháin has the small matter of Sunday’s provincial club semi-final against St Martin’s, who beat Naas 1-15 to 0-13 in Newbridge last weekend.
Jack O’Connor scored the goal for the Wexford champions while Rory O’Connor accounted for 0-11 of their tally, all from frees.
St Martin’s have never progressed to a provincial club senior hurling final, while Na Fianna were in last year’s decider – losing to Kilkenny’s O’Loughlin Gaels by just a single point at Croke Park.
“We haven’t played St Martin’s before so we’re just looking forward to the next seven days and preparing for the game,” says Ó Ceallacháin.
The Na Fianna boss expects to have a full hand to pick from with no major injury concerns arising from Sunday’s quarter-final win over Clough Ballacolla.
Dublin star Donal Burke – who was sidelined with a long-term hamstring problem during Na Fianna’s club championship campaign last year – was taken off in the closing stages on Sunday but Ó Ceallacháin confirmed it was not an injury-related change.
“No, no, he’s fine, he’d worked his heart out so we just took him out with a few minutes to go.”
The Leinster semi-final between Castletown Geoghegan and Kilcormac Killoughey will be shown live on TG4 next Sunday, 1.15pm.
