Eoin Doyle: No Naas superclub tag without underage volunteers
![Eoin Doyle: No Naas superclub tag without underage volunteers Eoin Doyle: No Naas superclub tag without underage volunteers](/cms_media/module_img/7732/3866335_2_articlesmall_2688402.jpg)
Naas football captain Eoin Doyle during the launch of the 2023 AIB GAA Leinster Senior Club Championship Finals at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
It will be a Leinster club SFC final clash of raging underdogs and overwhelming favourites but the similarities between Naas and Kilmacud Crokes far outweigh their differences.
They are both three-in-a-row county title winners, for starters, but what ties the two of them together as apparent superclubs is the fact that their hurling teams, with almost entirely different players, have been just as successful.
Remarkably, Naas have only three players, Brian Byrne, James Burke and Daire Guerin, on both of their adult senior club panels while Crokes have just one, Brian Sheehy.
That's possibly because of their huge membership bases; around 5,000 in Crokes' case and closing in on 3,000 at Naas, a commuter belt club just beyond the Dublin border.
Truth be told, all four clubs preparing for Leinster club football and hurling final duty at Croke Park this Saturday are giant enterprises. Na Fianna, preparing for a first ever Leinster final, have 3,500 members and field 200 teams across all codes and ages while O'Loughlin Gaels, their opponents from Kilkenny city, have an impressive setup that stands sentry next to Nowlan Park.
Naas captain Eoin Doyle, the experienced Kildare defender, argues the toss about his own club being considered a superclub though.
"I haven't heard that being said and, being brutally honest, if it was thrown at me (I would say), 'Where were we for the previous 30 years?'," said Doyle, a reference to the 31-year gap between Naas winning the 1990 Kildare SFC title and their next in 2021.
"There's work that goes in at club and county level to develop players but that's going on across every club in the country. That's where it all stems from. Whether you're successful or unsuccessful, it's the work that goes on from underage level to provide players for senior teams, club or county.
"Over the last number of years, there has been a lot of work done at juvenile level in both hurling and football. That has been positive and is coming to fruition now. There's a big emphasis on it and great people involved and I'm sure that there are great people in Crokes and Na Fianna too, and everywhere else because you don't get that volunteerism without it."
Crokes and O'Loughlin Gaels have previously captured provincial titles whilst Na Fianna have done it in football. Naas have an idea of how it might feel having watched their club hurlers win the All-Ireland intermediate title early last year.
The problem for the Naas footballers is that they keep running into Crokes. Two seasons ago, they lost a Leinster final to the Stillorgan side by seven points. When they met again at the quarter-final stage in last year's Leinster championship, Crokes won by nine.
Doyle conceded that if he were to pass through this golden era for the club without adding a provincial medal, it would be a letdown.
"We're going into our second Leinster final now in three years," he said. "If you're finishing your career and you haven't won one, that's certainly something that would gnaw at me."
There will be an added layer of difficulty for Naas this weekend as Paul Mannion, Dublin's Man of the Match in the All-Ireland final, will be available having missed the 2021 and 2022 games through injury. In the first half of Crokes' recent semi-final defeat of Ardee he was virtually unmarkable.
"That's another challenge altogether," said Doyle. "That's another angle to their already strong attacking unit that we'll have to try to curtail defensively. But whether it's Paul Mannion or Shane Walsh, or four or five other attacking players, or the attacking half-backs, or Craig Dias coming from midfield, they're strong all over."