‘We’re not a first team or a second team, we’re a family’
ALL-IRELAND CAMOGIE FINAL PREVIEW Burke heaps praise on club and community as Na Fianna bid for glory
On Sunday the Na Fianna camogie players will run onto the pitch at Croke Park for the All-Ireland Intermediate Club Camogie final against Kerry side Clanmaurice. By doing so they will create a piece of history.
They will be the first adult team from the Meath club to appear in a national final in the famous Jones's Road venue. In that fact alone the players, along with manager Niall Burke and his support team, have achieved something truly worthwhile, memorable.
Not, you suspect, that they will be happy to be mere extras in a big stage extravaganza. They will want to win, to add the All-Ireland to the Meath and Leinster titles already secured in what has turned out to be a great adventure for the club. An adventure that has taken Na Fianna where they have never gone before in so many respects.
The fact that Na Fianna are on the cusp of a major national title is an indication of just how well camogie has evolved in the club in recent times. It's a sign too of how this team has learned to win games they might previously have lost. Burke's black and amber warriors haven't lost a championship game all year.
On the 21st October Na Fianna won their second successive Meath senior camogie title, defeating old foes Kilmessan 1-9 to 0-10 in the final. On the 19th November they claimed the Leinster crown overcoming O'Moores from Laois. Now the big stage beckons.
So what is the secret of Na Fianna's progress? How have to managed to conquer all before them?
The answer is partially down to the fact that the squad is made up of committed bunch of players. That's a given. However, there is something else that lies at the heart of the matter. That's the view, the philosophy if you like, of the club in general and manager Burke in particular, who feels it's vitally important for everybody in the camogie set-up, not just the first team - the golden circle - to feel part of it all.
In that way, he suggests, a powerful, indomitable espirit de corps can be engendered and perhaps prove to be the difference, the x-factor, in the white heat of battle when a game hangs in the balance.
"Because there are so many girls involved we wanted to bring everyone together and basically create a family or community," Burke told the Meath Chronicle.
"We're not a first team or a second team we are a family and everybody is, if you like, a Soaring Star. If you are starting for Meath or if you are a sub on our third team you are still part if this, our community, this family that we have.
"That's really, really important to keep everyone involved. Unity breeds a happy camp and having a happy camp you enjoy training, you enjoy learning, you enjoy going out and representing your family, representing your club. All that has been part of our journey too. We've sought to imbue that family spirit, I suppose, within the group."
He says that during his own football and hurling days he was familiar with sitting on the bench. He knows that while a player might 'only' be a substitute a lot of the time there will come a day when he or she could play a vital role in digging out a victory. Players, he suggests, seemingly on the margins for much of the time, can be heroes also.
Employed as a aviation security inspector with the Irish Aviation Authority, Burke (who is married to Jessica and has four children) spends a lot of his time travelling around Ireland and abroad. He gets back home for games and training sessions as much as he can but he says he's fortunate that he's got "a fabulous" management team consisting of selectors Ken Forde, Martin Dixon and FLO Katrina Kelly. With him also is coach and brother, Shane Burke. When Niall can't make it back for training he can rest easy knowing the players will be well looked after.
There's something else Niall Burke (who is in his third year as Na Fianna manager) highlights as a reason why the team is enjoying something of a golden era - and that's the amount of dedicated work that has been done by people in the club in developing underage players over the years. He pays tribute to them too.
"Even when we didn't have much success at adult level there was a huge amount of work going on at underage. The fruits of all that hard work is starting to pay off. There's a lot of younger girls emerging, really adding to the talent that's already there."
Certainly the Na Fianna players can't be faulted for their commitment or single-mindedness. Burke points out the first training session of 2023 was on the 20th January last. Now here they are, 11 months later, still going, still chasing the big dream.
He has "some sympathy" for the LGFA and the Camogie Association when it comes to the recent fixtures debacle when Na Fianna's dual players had to play football and camogie All-Ireland semi-finals the same weekend - but that didn't diminish for him the sense of unfairness around the madcap schedule.
"Both bodies booked Croke Park the same weekend and they had to work back from that but there was just no allowance made for a dual club that got to that stage," he adds.
"Maybe going forward when both organisations are developing schedules they will think of this but I do have a degree of sympathy in that Meath got to an All-Ireland final (in camogie) that went to a replay so it was really a condensed schedule from there on. There wasn't much scope or room for manoeuvre."
There's lessons there for the future. Now, however, the Na Fianna manager and camogie players are focused on their big date on the biggest stage of all. Croke Park awaits and a shot at history.