Glasgow Gaels’ young stars become inaugural Scottish Champions

GLASGOW Gaels recently won the inaugural U15s Scottish Championship after a victory over Dunedin Connollys at Cambuslang Rugby Club.

The Gaels squad had enjoyed a good season up to this point, with their only defeat coming in the June final of the GAA’s North of Britain Games held in Manchester. This ‘domestic’ final, however, provided them with a timely opportunity to put their stamp on the 2025 Scottish season.

And quick out of the blocks, the Gaels enjoyed plenty of early possession, but the team from the Capital showed great determination in stopping a lot of those early attacks, getting in good blocks and intercepting a number of attempted passes.

The Gaels eventually broke that resistance with Cian Murphy scoring a scrappy soccer-style opening goal past an unlucky Cole Weatherly, but the Gaels coaches were scarcely worried about the aesthetics, for it settled the nerves and the boys in red began playing with greater cohesion, adding another goal and a few points, including a nice outside-of-the-boot score from midfielder Dan Doonan.

With Finn Brawley in his first year of the game combining well in midfield with the high-catching Jack McBride, the Gaels looked comfortable halfway through the opening half.

However, the Gaels coaches warned their charges about Edinburgh’s strong running ability and Dunedin enjoyed a good period of pressure, winning ball and frees deep in the Gaels half. A whistled free had the Glasgow boys pointing fingers while Edinburgh didn’t waste the gifted opportunity to score a goal and close the gap to four.

Coach Gareth Doonan rang the changes to try and alleviate the onslaught and Pádraig Duffy entered the fray at full-back to shore up the defence alongside the robust tackling of Harry McDonald.

Urged on by coach Justin Cranley and with Harry Cohen and Toby Burkhard Marks running strongly, Edinburgh’s pressure led to more chances, the stand out incident consisting of a fine save from goalkeeper, Liam Boyle, sandwiched between two shots that rattled the Gaels’ woodwork. Despite their coaches calling for calm, the Gaels boys were unable to win their own kickouts for a while.

But just when it looked like Edinburgh would draw even closer, the Glaswegians broke the shackles and after some fine interlinking play involving Pádraig McGinley and Cian Murphy up front, they added 2 more goals to finish 4-04 to 1-01 ahead at the break.

The half-time whistle was gratefully received by both teams—the lads in red were clearly showing the effort it was taking to score while at the same time, trying to stop the strong running of the Connolly’s boys.

The Gaels restarted facing a slight breeze and they began the second-half in a similar fashion to the first, except this time the plentiful possession led to an abundance of scores. With McBride and Brawley scoring from distance, including from angles outside the normal shooting zone, there was a deluge of goals from McGinley, Murphy, Doonan with Brawley also finding the net with a ground shot.

With James Winch marauding forward, seemingly intercepting every pass, Oisín Maher was also able to link with the midfield and helped keep the Gaels on the front foot. Caug McMullan was ploughing a lone furrow up front for Edinburgh, while every Gaels’ shot was now hitting the target and the Mack twins, Lewis and Liam, joined the fray to get some valuable cup final experience.

In the end, the Gaels won with a few to spare, but to their credit Edinburgh never stopped playing and really it was only a lack of physicality in the final third that made the score appear lopsided. Every Gaels player did the work needed to stop their opponents and the final whistle was greeted with a great cheer from the teams joined in the centre of the field by a numerous other players from the other youth age groups.

The game was a great spectacle and the players were delighted at the numbers who came out in support of them. So, a very successful U15 Scottish Championship comes to a close, and already the talk is about who will win it next year.

The Irish Voice caught up with Gaels coach, Gareth Doonan, after the game.

“What really pleases me is how this group has melded together over the past months,” he said. “Our squad is made up of established footballers, other boys who’d more or less walked away from the game, alongside lads who’d never even seen a game of Gaelic Football until they started training with us this year.

“Behind this victory today is a huge amount of voluntary work done from entirely within the club. The challenge now is to offer these boys competitive games next year when they move into the U17 grade. At this level, we really need effective recruitment in our schools to make the squad more viable, as well as plenty of exciting matches if these players are to stay in the game and become the homegrown stars of the future.”

And with that, he rejoined the Gaels crowd as the celebrations started in earnest.