David Sneyd

WHETHER BY LUCK or design, or possibly just necessity, the tapestry of stories that makes up Waterford’s squad was perfectly represented at the club’s media day for Sunday’s FAI Cup final.

The blend of characters was varied but a core truth remained.

“Usually you find a few d***heads in football, you do, you come across them all the time. There’s none over here, there’s none at all,” Noah Mawene said.

He’s a 21-year-old midfielder who came through the ranks at Preston North End. His brother, Samy, is highly rated at Brentford while their father, Youl, was a French defender who forged a career at Lens, Derby County and Preston, before bringing the family to Panserraikos in Greece and Aberdeen in Scotland until his playing days came to an end at Fleetwood Town.

He currently works as a strength and conditioning coach with Burnley and will be at the Aviva Stadium for the showpiece with Derry City. His advice to his son as he began to embark on his career in a senior dressing room was simple.

“It was just like make sure the seniors get their food first and no youngsters eat first. So I made sure I was last and I just waited. I think the boys at Preston respected that a little bit and respected the fact that I was a little bit old school, like an old school youngster, and I was just speaking when spoken to sort of thing.”

Mawene is on loan from Fleetwood. Their partnership with Waterford through the multi-club model has also ensured that Northern Ireland U21 international Stephen McMullan and Republic of Ireland U21 star Tommy Lonergan have been doing the business at the RSC.

That duo’s paths still retain their own arc. The goalkeeper arrived to chat at Waterford Crystal’s headquarters in the city with Armagh GAA shorts under his club tracksuit. His brothers, Gareth and Darren, are current senior intercounty hurlers for their county.

McMullan played minor for the footballers until deciding that soccer would be his chosen path. He had to quit GAA at 17. He had been part of the Dundalk academy until leaving for England at 17 but opted to represent the north of Ireland when they laid out a clearer pathway through their system.

That was no big deal compared to choosing soccer over Gaelic. “It’s just the way you are. Armagh is a very proud county, especially as a GAA man.
“It’s not a popular soccer county, I’ll tell you that much, but you just have to be headstrong and say ‘this is what I want to do’. You’re sort of looked at, ‘what are you doing? Play for this team, blah, blah, blah’. I just always knew I was better at the soccer side of it, so I stuck with it.”

Striker Lonergan might well be the man who proves to be the match winner on Sunday. A year in which he finished the League of Ireland season as the golden boot winner with 16 goals (nipping ahead of his 38-year-old striker partner Podge Amond on 15) also saw him flash his name in bright green lights on the radar of suitors by scoring a fine brace against England’s U21s.

Lonergan will be leading the line for Ireland in a play-off with Finland later this month for a place at the European Championships.

A cup winner – and goal scorer in the Aviva Stadium – with St Patrick’s Athletic in 2023, Lonergan joined Fleetwood before returning to Waterford on loan and then making the move permanent in 2025.

“I just live my life very positively. If anything negative happens, I try and take it. The main thing is you just enjoy yourself and you play football with love,” Lonergan says.

His faith is something he also leans on. He won’t make Mass on the morning of the final but did make sure to get home to his parish in Dunboyne, County Meath, last week.

“I feel like in the last year or two I was probably a bit delusionally confident, you know. Now I’ve started really believing it, I think that’s probably the best way of doing, just thinking positively all the time and trying to be happy. Don’t talk negative about anyone or about myself and just always thinking about the best outcome.”

And then there is someone like Conan Noonan, who you can’t help but be impressed by. Even as he approaches the age of 24, he is an example of the new breed of footballer being developed in this country. A gifted operator in midfield, he moved from Broadford to the Shamrock Rovers academy as a 14-year-old.

His talents ushered him into the first-team squad of Stephen Bradley, and he has three League of Ireland winners’ medals to his name from 2021 to 2023, although that was also a time when the effects of Long Covid meant he missed a year of football.

He went on loan to Waterford in 2025 and made the move permanent this year. Like Lonergan, he is sure to be coveted elsewhere. The way in which he has also been willing to sacrifice his own desires on the pitch for the good of the team under Graham Coughlan reaffirms his maturity.

“I love to get on the ball, creating chances, score goals and stuff. And that’s not my role now,” Noonan says.

“When he (Coughlan) came in, it was about adapting. It was about finding a way to be effective in the team, stripping back my game.

“I’d love to be myself on the football pitch, but as long as the club keeps winning, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Waterford, it seems, have found the ideal blend of talent and character.