AS STORY ARCS go, this is a bend that few could have predicted at the outset of the season.
Sligo versus Dublin in an All-Ireland SFC round-robin clash with a place in the knockout stages still in the offing for the Yeats County. Tony McEntee’s side have one point from their opening two Group 3 games, and are in a tussle with Kildare this weekend for the third spot which would assure their safe passage to the preliminary quarter-finals.
Roscommon and Dublin, the top two sides in the group, are effectively through before the final round of games.
Extracting a result from Dessie Farrell’s side in Cavan’s Breffni Park this Sunday will be a colossal task, but even being in this position is a sure sign of progress for Sligo. This is a season that they can already look back on fondly.
Reaching the Connacht final was a strong possibility for the county in 2023, given how Mayo, Roscommon and Galway were packed into the other side of the draw. Realising that goal gave Sligo the Sam Maguire swipe card. And now here they are.
Pat Spillane Junior, who qualifies to represent Sligo through his mother Rosarii, is enjoying the front row view of his team’s progressive season so far. A Division 4 title and a provincial final appearance are two big green ticks already on the report card.
“It’s been a brilliant year for us in fairness. When we got together at the start of the year, we were aware of how the draw was laid out for us. Our objective for the year was to make a Connacht final and to get into the Sam Maguire group stages.
“We’ve ticked off those objectives and I suppose we’re in bonus territory now. We’re heading into Sunday still alive and still a chance to play with no pressure on us so it’s a good position to be in.”
Spillane’s journey to joining the Connacht county has been outlined before, but no harm to lay out a quick review. Son of the Kerry great Pat senior, the young Templenoe footballer transferred to the St Jude’s club in Dublin where he is based with work. After helping his side reach the 2021 Dublin county final, he received a call in November from a Sligo official inviting him to line out for the county of his mother’s birth.
He took some time over the Christmas break to consider their offer before deciding to accept.
“It’s a big commitment,” says Spillane, “but I suppose I had a year playing down in Kerry when I was living in Dublin, and the journey then was about four hours to training every Friday and back on Sunday. So I suppose that conditioned me to be able for it.
“It’s been absolutely brilliant, I’ve loved every second of it. I’ve been really lucky with the timing of it that so many things are going well in Sligo GAA. We’ve such a good set-up here, we’ve so many young players coming through. The underage and the club scene is going well as well, so it’s a great time for the county.”
The idea of her son perhaps wearing the Sligo black and white may well have crossed his mother’s mind over the years, but the allure of Kerry was probably never too away from that thought either. But that road didn’t materialise for Pat junior. He was part of development squads in his home county but never progressed to the minor, U20 or senior grade at inter-county level.
“In fairness the whole family has taken a lot of pride out of it,” says Pat junior about his Sligo sojourn.
“They’ve loved the journey. They’ve been to most of the games over the last two years as well and it’s great to see my aunt and uncle at the Connacht final as well. They’re very proud to see me playing for Sligo.”
Spillane’s cousins Killian and Adrian along with Templenoe’s Tadhg Morley are all established Kerry seniors who were part of Jack O’Connor’s All-Ireland winning side last year. There’s also the connection with Spillane’s father and the eight All-Ireland medals he won with the Kingdom. But for Pat junior, there’s no resentment on his side that sport brought him down a different path.
“No, not at all. There wouldn’t have been any pressure on me. Adrian and Killian, my cousins, would have been doing a great job at county level, and leading the club. I would have played an awful lot of basketball, soccer, a bit of rugby as well. I obviously played with Templenoe and Kenmare District teams but I spread my interest across a number of sports. I never had all my eggs in one basket of making a Kerry team.
“It wasn’t something that ever crossed my mind.”
The Connacht final turned out to be a struggle for Sligo as they fell to All-Ireland finalists Galway. They recovered in the All-Ireland series, playing out a draw against Kildare in their Group 3 opener. Another defeat followed when they faced Roscommon but McEntee’s charges could take courage from that result against a team who had already earned a draw against the Dubs.
“We were confident,” Spillane explains,” that we could get a result so to come away against Kildare disappointed that we didn’t win says a lot about the group and our aspirations to be more than a Division 4 team, and hopefully move up the ranks over the next few years.
“We were tit for tat with Roscommon for three quarters of the game. I don’t think the scoreline reflected how well we played for portions of that. We were down by two at half-time so we were disappointed at how we finished the game but I suppose we showed that we can cause damage to top teams.
Spillane was raised on the Kerry-Dublin lore that his father played through in the 1970s and 1980s. It will be a special day for the family to add another chapter to that rivalry when Pat junior faces them on Sunday. He’ll also be familiar with many of the players on the opposition side of the line, including his St Jude’s clubmate Tom Lahiff.
“I’d say Dad will really enjoy the game,” he says. “It’ll be a strange experience for him seeing his son line up against Dublin given all the memories he has playing against them. But I’m looking forward to it and looking forward to going up against Tom as well.”
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