Three reasons Corofin are All-Ireland club champions

1. Tradition

Tradition. Pedigree. DNA. Call it what you like. It is who you are. What you are.

Corofin have it in spades. Daithí Burke. Ronan Steede. Ian and Justin Burke. All their fathers were on the 1998 club side. Eddie was a top college player with Tuam CBS in 1980. Gerry and Ollie Burke won All-Ireland minor medals in 1976. Liam and Cathal Silke's dad Brian won an All-Ireland minor medal with Galway in 1986 and a senior medal in 1998, and captained St Sylvester’s to the Dublin championship in 1997. Kieran Fitzgerald got an All-Star and an All-Ireland with Galway in 2001. He also won an All-Ireland Féile medal back in 1995.

Gary Sice, David Morris, Alan Burke, Michael Comer, Pádraig Kelly, Barry and Alan O'Donovan, the Farraghers, Kevin Murphy, Joe Canney, and most of the entire panel, have huge links with Gaelic football and with Corofin.

Team manager Stephen Rochford won an All-Ireland club medal with Crossmolina in 2001. Football is in his blood.

Gaelic football is the top game in Belclare and Corofin and after Tuesday's massive win, that is how it will remain.

Who would bet against the club winning another All-Ireland club title in the next three years?

2. Skill and pace

What do Micheál Lundy, Gary Sice, Ian Burke, Liam Silke, Martin Farragher and a few other players on the starting 15 have in common?

Massive pace and terrific kicking skills. You can't beat it, especially in Croke Park.

That, allied to the raw power of players such as Greg Higgins, who stands 6' 4" in his socks and weights in at 15st 10 lbs, is what gives the team a super balance.

In their 10 championship games all year, they always looked a class outfit. Because they are.

3. Ambition

These Corofin players expect to win the Galway county championship every year. Full-back Kieran Fitzgerald has nine county medals, Gary Sice and Alan Burke have seven medals.

Yet that is not enough to satisfy them anymore. With the talent at their disposal, they have loftier ambitions - to win All-Ireland titles.

They want to be talked about like the Nemo Rangers and Crossmaglen teams which have won numerous All-Ireland titles.

Two is a nice number, but three has a better ring to it.

 

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