How Slaughtneil are balancing hurling and football training right now is a club at one with itself

They don’t make them like Slaughtneil anymore.

There’s magic in that small rural community at the foot of the Sperrin Mountains. There’s magic in the 300 families between Maghera and Swatragh. There’s magic in the townland that is.

Everyone of those 300 families make up Slaughtneil Robert Emmet’s GAA club. The GAA club isn’t the most important thing in the community, it’s the only thing.

Slaughtneil hurler and footballer, Conor McAlister estimates that every single one of those 300 families have a connection one way or another with the club.

“Every house would nearly have someone playing. I was talking to the boys there from Dublin, Limerick and Galway, they’d lose a lot of boys to other sports like soccer and rugby but we don’t really have that problem, I suppose. Everyone is very focused on it. Even all the volunteers around the club. The hurlers and the camógs as well, everyone is just driven,” he told us at a recent AIB event.

Slaughtneil isn’t like the clubs in Dublin, Limerick or Galway where there are distractions. It’s easy to see why when they’re having success like this.

• Five-in-a-row Derry hurling titles in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017.
• Back-to-back Ulster hurling titles in 2016 and 2017.
• Four-in-a-row Derry football titles in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017.
• Ulster football title in 2014, 2016 and a place in this year’s final.

"Everybody's scared of other people's opinions but in Slaughtneil we just embrace who we are"https://t.co/OSOGm7yacR #TheToughest @AIB_GAA

— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) February 16, 2017

That’s just the men. The women are doing just as good.

• Two-in-a-row Derry Camogie champions 2016, 2017.
• Two-in-a-row Ulster Camogie champions 2016, 2017.
• All-Ireland Camogie Champions 2016/17.

The senior men are preparing for an All-Ireland hurling semi-final this weekend against Na Piarsaigh. In three week’s time, they’ll be playing in the football semi-final against Nemo Rangers.

A huge amount of the players are involved in both panels, and for the last three months they’ve been juggling training for both, but according to McAlister, it’s been smooth as you like.

There’s been no tension between the hurling and football managers, trying to get their players kicking or pucking as much as they can. It’s all been about co-operation.

“They’re treated 50/50. Equal time is set aside for both of them. There’s no favouritism shown,” said McAlister.

“Our managers work very well together, they meet up every week and sort out a schedule and agree to it. They set aside days for recovery and strength and conditioning. I suppose it is hard but it’s a good problem to have.”

It’s nothing complicated. When there’s a football game at the weekend, it’s all football and vice versa with hurling.

“In the weeks leading up to the matches you would focus on that specific code. Then in the weeks leading up to the other matches – well, the dual players anyway – but it’s not to say the hurlers would stop training. The non-dual players would go and do their work. When the dual players are away, they would go and do the harder work – the tackling, the running, that sort of fitness work.

In a GAA world where overburdening of players is the raging hot topic, Slaughtneil treat theirs’ with common sense. They treat them with respect.

And they Derry men are gunning for Na Piarsaigh on Sunday.

“Obviously, Na Piarsaigh, they’ve been there and done that, they were All-Ireland champions there a couple of years ago. Everyone’s probably looking for this Cuala vs Na Piarsaigh final but we’ll do our best to upset that,” said McAllister.

And Nemo Rangers.

“Obviously, with the football, we’ve been knocking around for a few years now. We’d  be considered a top team. We have a very young hurling team and in the next few years, we’d definitely be looking to push for the All-Ireland.”

We certainly wouldn’t bet against them.

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