WHEN THE NAAS footballers appointed a player-manager to take over the senior side in the middle of the county championship, they thought it would be a brief arrangement.

The club were preparing for a county semi-final against Maynooth when news emerged that Paul Kelly had stepped down from his position as boss. 

In Kelly’s absence, club stalwarts Eoin Doyle and Eamonn Callaghan paired up to take charge of a player-led management unit. Doyle assumed the role of manager while Callaghan was appointed captain ahead of their final-four clash.

They didn’t anticipate that the newly formed system would be in place for long, but they are now just days away from a Leinster final having already scooped their first Kildare senior crown since 1990.

If anyone thought they were leaderless, their incredible run so far has highlighted just how united they are.

“Eoin Doyle is the manager, I’m just the captain,” Callaghan says about the unique management dynamic ahead of their showdown with Dublin’s Kilmacud Crokes on Saturday.

“I would help out as much as I can but he has really taken the reins on it. He has help from a few other lads from the club as well who have been involved, there’s three or four of them who have been helping out at the training sessions and on match-day.

“When we went down that route, we thought it would just be a short-term gig preparing for a couple of matches but then we won the semi-final and the final. We didn’t think we’d be still going over Christmas and into the new year but it’s been great.

“Eoin has put a huge amount of time into it away from the football pitch to prepare us as professionally as we ever have been and he’s an unbelievable character as well. He has great respect amongst the players and while I’m sure it’s taken a lot out of him, he certainly hasn’t shown it on the pitch either.”

This a period of huge excitement for the Naas club. In addition to their footballers reaching the Leinster final, their hurlers are also preparing for a provincial showpiece. Their big day will fall on 16 January when they take on Wexord champions Oylegate/Glenbrien in the Leinster intermediate final.

They have two dual players in James Burke and Brian Byrne, who are both hoping for double Leinster success this month.

The footballers will meet Kilmacud Crokes in Croke Park on Saturday evening. It’s a familiar venue for Naas following their Leinster semi-final win over Shelmaliers, where Callaghan brought the contest to extra-time with a late free.

“Playing in Croke Park is just a different ball-game,” says Callaghan. “It was great to be able to play the semi-final up there, you usually wouldn’t get to do it in Leinster championships. So for our lads, you’d be hoping that any such nerves or tension about that is out of the way now before the final and they’ll be a bit more tuned in and a bit more able to cope with the atmosphere.

“My own family and supporters and people like that, they’re telling us that we’re not giving them any easy games and I don’t think they’re too grateful of the last minute stuff! It’s just the way the games have panned out but we’re lucky we’ve been on the right end of them.

“I think we can take a lot from that Shelmaliers game. It looked like it was gone from us and it looked like we were under pressure with the sending off and the black cards and then going down in injury time – it looked like we were gone but in fairness we were still in the game and I think the goal we got in the last ten minutes was crucial.

“That gives you a lift and we hung in then to get it to extra-time. You’d hope that experience will stand to us the next day. We are playing a completely different opposition here so hopefully it will stand to us.”

Naas footballer Eamonn Callaghan was speaking ahead of the AIB GAA Leinster SFC Final, which takes place at Croke Park, this Saturday, 8 January at 5pm and will see the Kildare champions take on Dublin’s Kilmacud Crokes. This game will be broadcast live on RTÉ 2.

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