LAST UPDATE | 26 Dec 2021
THERE WAS A time during Gary O’Donnell’s Galway football career when he felt like wasn’t worthy of a place in the dressing room.
The three-time Connacht SFC winner is arguably one of the best players that the county has produced in the modern game. He was a consistent starter throughout his 13 seasons in a Galway jersey, typically playing on the wings of the defence where he always held his own.
O’Donnell served six different inter-county managers, and all six deemed him to be a quality pick.
The Gort-born footballer also captained Galway to a provincial triumph in 2016 which was their first Connacht crown in eight years. As most inter-county careers go, O’Donnell had more than earned his rack of lamb.
But his formative years on the panel were spent wrestling with doubts about whether he belonged. O’Donnell’s home address is on the south side of the county where hurling is the dominant GAA force. And it wasn’t that O’Donnell didn’t enjoy hurling, he just had a deeper grá for football.
Both of his parents are football enthusiasts who come from Mayo while two-time All-Ireland winner Ja Fallon is O’Donnell’s uncle.
He had strong connections with the sport, but trying to make his mark with in the big ball game ended up becoming a psychological challenge as well as a physical one.
“It took me a few years to find my feet,” he tells The42 just before Christmas as he looks back over his fruitful Galway career.
“I was playing on underage Galway teams throughout my teens which is over half my life, so when I look back on it that way, it was no fluke because I played under five or six different senior managers.
“But definitely in the early days, it took me a while to find my feet. Probably confidence wise, I probably thought I didn’t belong there. But just as I got through the years, I started believing in myself a bit more and worked really hard at training. I think the managers and players probably recognised that as well, and probably appreciated it as well.
”So, yeah, maybe I felt like I hadn’t earned the opportunity to play. It’s just the way it is.”
Growing up in Gort, O’Donnell went through the usual menu of sports. There was hurling, soccer and rugby were all on offer, and it was through the St Colman’s club that he fostered his love of Gaelic Football.
St Colman’s was an amalgamation effort as the Beagh, Gort and Kilbeacanty clubs all joined up their forces.
They didn’t play at the top level in Galway, but they did enjoy some success in the junior grade. But a time eventually came when they were unable to field teams and the club was forced to disband.
O’Donnell didn’t want to give up on playing football, and he was granted another shot when he was invited to join the Tuam Stars, which is Ja Fallon’s club.
“I was left with a dilemma to try and manage it,” O’Donnell continues. “I was just after being called into the Galway senior squad by Liam Sammon in the winter of 2007, and was still playing with St Colman’s. I played the following year with Galway, didn’t play a huge amount and then Colman’s disbanded. So I had a decision to make, and in fairness to Liam at the time, he was very understanding.
“He reassured me that it wouldn’t affect my chances with inter-county whether I was playing junior club football or senior. I had the opportunity to move to Tuam Stars when I was approached by a few there and I was more than delighted. The rest is history I suppose.
“Galway were really successful in the 90s and early 00s and I’ve a family connection there with the Fallons and Ja. We followed all those teams as a family and got great fun and enjoyment out of that. Being a young lad of 10 or 11 years of age, it was just something that was a burning desire in me to pursue my career in football.
“I never imagined that it’d pan out the way it did because I also realised from a young age that I knew nobody from south Galway had ever done it, so I had no path worn in front of me.”
O’Donnell made that switch when he was still a teenager, before the introduction of motorway roads in Galway. That meant the young O’Donnell was facing a tough commute of roughly an hour to Tuam in order to make that commitment to his new club.
“It was a bit of a pain in the neck that way,” O’Donnell recalls, “but I suppose you didn’t see the worst of it, the fact that you were in with the county set-up for most of the year and then you might have two or three months with the club then after that, so you didn’t get the worst of it.
“But even since I’ve pulled away from the county set-up, I’m looking forward to committing to club as much as I can until I’m not needed any more or injuries come into play.”
O’Donnell’s choice to focus on football turned out to be the right one for him, but what of the road that he didn’t travel?
Recently retired Galway hurler Aidan Harte was born in the same year as O’Donnell and grew up across the road from him in Gort. O’Donnell never quite managed to reach the pinnacle of his sport with Galway, while Harte finished his career with an All-Ireland medal from 2017.
O’Donnell sometimes wonders how things would have transpired had he decided to stick with hurling.
“I loved playing hurling through the years and a lot of the lads that were my age went on and won county medals with Gort, and eventually All-Irelands with Galway. Aidan Harte and Greg Lally were on that team.
“But I say all the time that I wouldn’t have been good enough at the time to pursue that. People would often say otherwise but I don’t think I would have been good enough.
“I’ve made an attempt a few times to go back and play with the club. I’ve had very few injuries but the one or two times I did try and play hurling with Gort during the summers, I picked up niggly injuries and had to have operations.
“I still go to all the games and know all the lads so there’s a nice connection.”
O’Donnell only has one real regret from his football days with Galway. After that breakthrough season in 2016 which saw Galway crowned Connacht champions, they failed to make much further progress in the All-Ireland series.
The 2016 campaign ended with a heavy defeat to Tipperary in the All-Ireland quarter-final. They reached the same stage again the following season where they bowed out to Kerry.
Galway went one step further in 2018 but were unable to detain a powerful Dublin team. However, the Tribesmen’s fortune began to turn after that as is they ran out of chances to make more of an impression on the championship.
“But that’s the way it goes,” O’Donnell says with air of acceptance.
“Mayo dominated for five or six years in Connacht and we broke that so that was satisfying enough. But there were plenty of times when we could have pushed on a bit more and been more consistent throughout that time.
“We definitely left a few of those provincial finals after us. And we could have pushed on further in the All-Ireland series so that’ll be something that’ll be stuck in my mind for the next few years.”
O’Donnell’s inter-county career may be over, but he still has plenty of energy left for Tuam Stars. They reached the quarter-finals of the Galway SFC this year and are closing in on a major breakthrough in the top tier.
“We’re knocking on the door the last two or three years,” says O’Donnell as he looks to the days ahead of him. “We got beat by Moycullen this year by a point and and they beat us in the semi-final last year, so we’ve been in the last four/eight for the last couple of years.
“We’re a bit off it at the moment but things can change this year with club championship, with all the first-time winners this year. So, we’ll keep ploughing away and see where it takes us.”
