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05/06/2020

Interview with team captain, Daniel Goulding, after County Final   21/06/2021

It’s a dream come true’: Daniel Goulding leads Éire Óg to top tier

The 2010 All-Ireland winner will celebrate his 35th birthday next month. Retirement is a way off yet, mind

‘It’s a dream come true’: Daniel Goulding leads Éire Óg to top tier

Winning Éire Óg captain Daniel Goulding accepts the Kevin McTernan Cup. Pictures: Ger Bonus


SUN, 20 JUN, 2021 - 21:00

EOGHAN CORMICAN

Daniel Goulding reckons it was 2003 when he played his first game of junior football for the club. He was 16 at the time.


Had you told him then that Éire Óg would one day find themselves in a Premier Senior Championship group alongside Castlehaven, Carbery Rangers, and Newcestown, he’d have “laughed at you”.


It’s been quite the journey from junior to top-tier football for the Ovens club, Goulding and half-back Dermot O’Herlihy the two members of Saturday’s line-up who were part of the 2008 junior, 2014 intermediate, and 2019 premier intermediate county championship-winning teams.


Four county medals and almost two decades of service later, the view is a pretty satisfying one for the Éire Óg captain: “It is a dream come true,” said Goulding of Éire Óg attaining premier senior status for the first time in the club’s history.


“It is great for the people in the club that have put in effort going back a long time. We won the county minor A in 2002 and that was the start of winning football in Éire Óg. From everyone that was involved then to all the teams to now, from coming from nothing and barely having a football team to getting to this is incredible.”


Goulding referenced their 2017 premier intermediate quarter-final replay hammering at the hands of St Michael’s (2-15 to 0-8) as a key marker in this team’s development: “The majority of these lads got beaten by St Michael’s by a cricket score four years ago. Everyone to a man stuck at it. You come back the next year and you learn from your mistakes.


“Fellas just buy into the team and working hard. There is no special formula. All the lads love training, love buying into what Paudie Kissane tells us what to do. If you have that, you have a chance.”


The 2010 All-Ireland winner will celebrate his 35th birthday next month. Retirement is a way off yet, mind.


“I always take the view that if you are enjoying it, you play away. I am enjoying it at the moment. When you get to play with young lads like this, and the power, pace, enthusiasm, and lack of fear they have, they are just a great group to play with.


“We should be packing up for the winter after a county final, but we’ll knuckle down first for the hurling and then think about [premier senior football] after that.”







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