Experienced forward battled back from injury nightmare to help club end 26-year wait for Down crown - but the bigger picture is never too far from view

GEAROID Adams is usually an oasis of calm, no matter how strong the storm.

It wasn’t always that way, he admits, but time has mellowed the 53-year-old. Stood at the centre of a sea of yellow, however, he was struggling to find the words to sum up what Clonduff’s first Down title in 26 years meant.

“I’m a wee bit all over the place, to be honest,” he told reporters with a shake of the head.

Adams’s search for clarity wasn’t helped when Barry O’Hagan emerged from the crowd to wrap the west Belfast man in an almighty bear hug.

“F**k the interviews,” screamed O’Hagan, wearing a beaming smile, “I f**king love you!”

While Adams recovered from mild concussion – “I’m nearly knocked out now” – the experienced forward moved off into the arms of another, then another, then another.

In the latter years of Kilcoo’s unrelenting domination of the Down scene, county final day came to feel like a stepping stone towards a grander stage.

When reeling off an unprecedented seven titles in-a-row, and 14 in 15 years, it is only natural for ambition to accelerate into other areas.

This time was different. It was raw. Visceral. Bleary eyes stared into one another, barely able to comprehend what was happening.

Before lifting the Frank O’Hare Cup, joint captains Charlie Carr and Stephen McConville sought out the number two jersey that belonged to Lorcán Branagan, their friend and team-mate who tragically died in Sydney two years earlier, adding another layer of emotion to an already charged atmosphere.

“I don’t even know what the right words are to describe when that whistle went,” says O’Hagan.

“The emotion, the realisation of what you’ve achieved… it all just hits you. Ye know when sometimes you’re knocked for six, or when someone catches you totally off guard?

“I just couldn’t believe we’d actually got over the line. Like, I’m playing 14 years, then when you start meeting team-mates, wife, mum, dad, children, brothers, it hits even more.

“Your back’s near broke with so many people hugging you with so much emotion.”

The hours, and the days, that followed were everything they could have imagined.

Because, more than most, Clonduff had to suffer for this. With so many family ties between the two clubs, and the bad blood that has bubbled below – and occasionally above – the surface, Kilcoo’s run of success felt like death by a thousand cuts.

“I can still remember the 2016 final,” he says of Clonduff’s last appearance in a Down decider, “they absolutely railroaded us.

“At one stage I looked up at the scoreboard and it was something like 17 points to three points, and you’re thinking ‘how did that happen?’”

Yet, as the jubilant Sunday night scenes in Hilltown square carried on to the point that time became an irrelevance, the dog days mattered no more.

“Ah, the Monday club’s some spot… I’ve been in the Monday clubs a few times where it’s been just depression.

“My own father wouldn’t be a big drinker, he’s a farmer and he wouldn’t miss work too much, but there he was sitting in the pub with us at half 11 on the Monday morning. You’re just looking at him going ‘this is what it’s about’.

“You had men who were supposed to be at work who were in the pub before you, and you had men who went to work and said ‘nah, I’m taking a half day’.

“Nothing beats a first like that. There’s so many people in Clonduff wanting you to do well and wishing you well, and I know we’re the 48 lads who go on the field and train hard, but it’s as much theirs as it is ours.

“There’s lads who unfortunately just missed out… my own brother [Conor Og] was playing football right up until this year, and unfortunately he picked the wrong year to retire.

“The likes of Aidan Carr and Finbarr McConville, who’s now along the coaching side of things, them men have really pushed Clonduff on over the years.”

And even word of Mickey Harte’s arrival in Kilcoo, which dropped the Tuesday after the county final, didn’t affect the mood one iota.

“To be honest, I actually smiled.

“You know yourself, that didn’t just come about that Tuesday, that’s been in the pipeline a while. But here, listen, it’s brilliant - get Mickey Harte into Down football. You may as well. It’s good to see more established coaches wanting to be a part of it.

“We’ll be looking forward to welcoming him to Clonduff next year.”

A bit like Edendork – Saturday’s Ulster club championship opponents, fresh off a first-ever Tyrone SFC win – there are so many different strands to the Clonduff story. The O’Hagan brothers, and the goodwill towards them, represent one of those.

Speaking in the moments after beating Burren a fortnight ago, Darren admitted wondering whether he would ever share a field with Barry again after his younger sibling suffered a cruel couple of years on the injury front.

Darren hasn’t had it easy either. Since the turn of the decade, the former Down captain had to get torn cartilage in his knee repaired and underwent surgery on a broken wrist before going under the knife again to try and correct a long-standing hip problem.

Indeed, it was the hip issue that flared up 20 minutes into the county final, forcing the 36-year-old to leave the action prematurely. Yet there was no happier or prouder man looking on when the cup was raised to a cacophony of cheers.

To stand there with Barry made it all the more special, because he knows better than most the dark road travelled after back-to-back cruciate injuries.

The first came playing for Down against Antrim in February 2023, leading to a triple reconstruction of his knee ligaments, with the second against Armagh in the 2024 Ulster SFC semi-final – just weeks after his return to the field.

“Playing with both brothers has been brilliant,” says Barry, “but for years Darren and I were travelling to Down training sessions, me and him on the road a lot, and it was probably a big driving force to get back on the pitch.

“I could have coped with myself not winning - I could have. I could have retired, and I could take that, but I don’t think he would have deserved not to win one. That’s the bond you build up through the years.

“When I did both knees, I don’t think there was any one person more hurt than him. Especially the second one - you never want to see your loved ones in pain, and I think it took a bit out of him.

“Him being a wee bit older, and the person you looked up to growing up, you strived to follow in his footsteps. I might not have quite got there, but I tried my best.”

Throughout the long periods of rehab, the false dawns and the setbacks, it was the hope that kept O’Hagan going. Clonduff had been knocking harder and harder at the door. He could see the talent coming through, see the group taking shape.

The 33-year-old, though, does not wish to shine the spotlight upon himself – instead pointing to the impact his injuries had on family and friends, who did everything they could to help him back, so that days like these remained a possibility.

“My wife, Aoife, was amazing. The last six or seven weeks, she has been exceptional because I’ve been trying my best, nursing a few injuries.

“I can train hard, that’s the truth - it’s the matches that take it out of me more than anything.

“I didn’t train much before the Mayobridge and Carryduff games, I was injured with the hamstrings, got through the matches at probably 60 per cent.

“The rehab through the championship meant I hardly saw my wife and my kids, I didn’t really see them for two-and-a-half weeks where I just lived and breathed either the gym or the Canal Court. That made my body be able to get through the final, give as much as I could.

“Like, Aoife could take or leave football. Her uncle, Tony Bagnall, is heavily involved with Glenn but, if I wasn’t playing, I don’t know if she’d watch football.

“When I did my second ACL, our second child was only a couple of months old, so Aoife had a lot to deal with. She had to do a lot of the heavy lifting there, two under the age of two.

“You’re struggling physically and you’re struggling emotionally - as men, we probably don’t express that as much. That year I hardly wanted to go and watch Clonduff or Down, because you just can’t switch off.

“I saw Danny Magill after the final there and he’s still on the sidelines – your heart goes out to him. Paddy Brooks just had surgery three weeks ago. For those boys it’s their whole world right now, and I get that.

“Having Owen Clarke as a physio was massive… he became more of a friend, would’ve text you late at night to see how you were getting on. Or if you left his physio room, and he sensed you were leaving in bad form because you maybe hadn’t hit markers you wanted to hit.

“Honestly, them bits are more difficult than you would think, because you could go into his place and be thinking ‘I’m doing really well’, and then you do a certain test and you’re nowhere near. In those moments, you just feel like you’re right back to square one.

“Then when you eventually get across the line like we did, you see them dark days in the gym at five or six in the morning, or when you’re on the physio table and you can’t even stand up correctly… I don’t take it for granted.”

Children change your perspective too. The O’Hagans have two, Ayda (6) and Ríoghnach (4), with a third on the way. Ríoghnach could “take it or leave it” but, all week, Ayda was glued to Barry’s side.

Daddy and daughter were in Newry for a swimming lesson days before the final and, as they passed Pairc Esler, Ayda asked whether she could lift the trophy if Clonduff got the job done.

“Honestly,” he says, “that near knocked me sideways…”

That image of the whole crew with the Frank O’Hare Cup is now his WhatsApp picture; a constant reminder of what it’s all about.

And yet the cause ran deeper still. Because, after the loss of Lorcán Branagan, those players knew they were the lucky ones. In chasing their own dreams, they were also chasing his.

Club vice-chairman Bernard Branagan lost his wife Zipporah, mother to their seven young boys, in April 2025. He couldn’t have done any more for this group in recent weeks and months and their success has, in turn, lifted his family at an incredibly difficult time.

Even inside the walls of their own changing room, the bigger picture – way beyond football – has been ever-present.

“There’s a young man on our team, Aaron Sherry - our goalkeeper - and his partner Colleen has gone through leukaemia. This is her second stage of stem cell treatment, and when you look at her, and the effort Aaron has put in to come to training this year… we’ve talked about that a lot.

“Last year Aaron had a step away because Colleen’s treatment was in London, then this year the treatment happened to be in Belfast, and she kind of forced him to go and have that wee bit of an outlet, because it’s not easy - I can’t imagine seeing your partner at their lowest.

“So while there was a serious outpouring for me and Darren in a football sense - my phone was mental on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday from real good GAA people reaching out to you, and I appreciated every bit of it - but there are much more important things going on.”

Lorcán Branagan’s loss was never used as an emotional trigger; it didn’t need to be. Instead it was - and remains - personal to each and every one of them.

No matter what happens at the Athletic Grounds on Saturday, or in the years to come, that will never change.

“People maybe don’t realise how big a part of this team Lorcán was.

“I lost my granny during this year, but there’s something different when it’s a team-mate or a friend… it still sends shivers, and it rocked that group for a long time. It hit the whole community, everybody in the club.

“The funeral was really tough, seeing the jersey on top of the coffin… you still remember the day they brought the coffin down to the football field, when you knew he was finally home.

“I don’t think we ever needed to use Lorcán as motivation, it was moreso that it was the right thing to do. He started this momentum of boys working hard and tackling, and he put the belief into some of those men in his friendship circle about wanting to win.

“I know, both as a hurler and a footballer, he really wanted to push on and make Clonduff as good as possible. Even after the final, it was such a nice moment for Conor Murray to put the cup on Lorcán‘s grave and say a few words… 50-odd men - management included - in tears. It tells a story of its own.

“There was a sense that he was looking down, happy we got there.”