“He set the tone, the standard and the pace. He just wouldn’t accept mediocrity from anybody”

Of all the players he’s ever seen and played with and played against, never in his life has Alan Kerins come across a better one than Michael Donnellan.

It’s funny how it all started. Michael Donnellan and his brother John left the Galway panel on the week of the 2001 Connacht quarter-final against Leitrim because, as a convert from another cult, as a hurler who’d just bounced onto the football panel a few weeks earlier, Alan Kerins came into take John’s place.

He had never played football, league or championship for Galway before and when he was named in John’s position, as a bolt from the proverbial blue, the Donnellans weren’t happy and neither of them togged. Michael was back in for the semi-final against Roscommon and while John remained a sub for the rest of the season, you could call it a happy ending when Galway won the All-Ireland that summer.

Kerins was a member of that All-Ireland winning team, as he was in 2006 when, alongside Donnellan, he played in the Salthill Knocknacarra half forward line. They defeated St Gall’s of Antrim in the club final that day and on the field and off it, Kerins may never have had a better team-mate.

“Michael was probably one of the best athletes I’ve ever played with and probably one of the best footballers I’ve ever seen. He was a phenomenal athlete with a phenomenal will to win.”

In a brilliant Irish Examiner article, a Salthill Knocknacarra team-mate Colin Sheridan developed on the point, pointing to the “competitive fortitude” that Donnellan possessed, a desire that was “uncommon in most men.”

“How privileged I am to remember the filthy, dirty pitch in An Spiddal, where Salthill trained that long winter, and the demonic perfectionism with which Donnellan infused the team, and which undoubtedly won an All Ireland for a club once perceived as a soft touch.”

Kerins, too, talks of his inimitable ability to improve the standards of those around him.

“He was a great man in a dressing room as well as on the pitch in that the standards he set were really high. He just wouldn’t accept mediocrity from anybody in that he brought everybody up with him,” Kerins said at the launch of the Electric Ireland minor championships.

“He was a brilliant leader, a great fella as well and most important of all, he walked the walk too. He was gifted, with a great brain but the drive and energy that he brought was just amazing,” added Kerins.

“He was a really good guy but just a once-in-a-generation player and individual in terms of what he brought to the table. Not the demands, but he just brought everybody up to his standards and that was great, and he set the tone, he set the standard and the pace and he was just hugely influential in that club All-Ireland the All-Irelands Galway well.

“I couldn’t speak highly enough of him as a person and as a player and just grateful and privileged to have played with him and to have shared the same dressing room as him…”

It was Kerins’ own sense of adventure that gave him the chance. He’s a hurler, from hurling country in Clarinbridge but, as a student up in Trinity College, when the chance came to play with the Sigerson football team in ’97, instead of asking why he said why the hell not.

He takes up the story from there.

“I went to Trinity in ‘97 to study physiotherapy. For the first year or two I played Fitzgibbon and I was playing soccer for Galway Town at home. The hurling wasn’t probably at a level of professionalism that was needed to keep me fit over the winter. 

“The footballers had a really good setup in terms of training and they were strong enough. I was living with a couple of Cavan guys who had played minor and U21 for Cavan and they said ‘why don’t you give football a go?’ so I went out and I tried it and I really enjoyed it.

“They stuck me in corner back for a few games and I did OK. I remember playing in a Colours match against UCD and I was marking Derek Savage and I did OK on him and they played me wing or corner back and I suppose I was fairly fit and fairly fast so I was a bit of a spoiler!

“So I enjoyed it so much that then I said I’d join a club in Galway and I approached a few clubs and Salthill were the ones who reached out and took interest and I joined Salthill in 2000 I think. I played an intermediate game and they played me up front and then I started playing up front and doing fairly ok for them. 

“Then in 2001 I became the captain of the Sigerson team in Trinity and I played a few games and John O’Mahony got some reports back and they asked if they could watch me in a couple of Football League games with Salthill and I got called in then after they lost the League Final to Mayo in 2001. But if you told me that in 2000 that I’d have a Club All Ireland with Salthill and an All Ireland with Galway I would have said you were on something!”

Now he’s the only player to have won All-Ireland club titles in both codes with different clubs. The lesson, don’t ask why, ask why not.

Electric Ireland will also continue its sponsorship of the Electric Ireland Higher Education GAA Leagues and Championships for an additional five years, having been title sponsor of the competitions since 2017. Each year, over 7,000 students take part in the Electric Ireland GAA Higher Education Leagues and Championships and culminate with the prestigious Electric Ireland Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cup Finals.  

The FootballJOE quiz: Were you paying attention? – episode 10