Captain Coffey chasing county final glory

At half-time in the Joe Mallon Motors Senior Football Championship Final on Sunday, the 2001 county-winning Sarsfields team will be introduced to the crowd as this year's jubilee team.

Barry Coffey may only have been five or six years old at the time, but he remembers that team well. His father, Ken, the legendary physio who was involved with numerous Sarsfields sides as well as underage international soccer teams, was part of the set-up and that gave Coffey the chance to spend time around the squad.

It afforded the impressionable youngster an up-close view of Sarsfields and Kildare legends such as Dermot Earley, Pauric Brennan, Niall Buckley, Liam Sexton, Alan Barry and many more.

Those experiences helped instil a love of Sarsfields and set him on the path to becoming the player he is today.

There will be no prouder man in a Sarsfields jersey on Sunday when he matches the feat of his cousin Conor Duffy, who captained the club to county final success in 2014, by leading the team out as captain.

It will be Sarsfields' first final since 2021 and they have not lifted the title since 2019. Coffey admits that feels like a long drought for a club of their stature.

"It certainly feels a lot longer than five years, but it's great to be back and there's a great buzz around the place. The goal at the start of the year was to be here, so yeah, it's great," he said.

There have been near misses in the intervening years. Sarsfields lost an extra-time semi-final to Celbridge in 2024 and suffered a particularly painful one-point defeat to eventual champions Athy last year.

"They were two tough semi-final defeats but, to be fair, both games could have gone either way. Last year we'd put an awful lot into it and felt we were ready, but it wasn't to be. The lads really put the shoulder to the wheel and knuckled down this year and, if anything, those defeats brought us closer together. It's great to right the wrong of those semi-finals, but there's still more football to be played," said Coffey.

He has experienced the highs and lows that county final day can bring, but Coffey will forever be linked with the club's 2019 success.

With just seconds remaining, Sarsfields trailed great rivals Moorefield and, with Ross Glavin in opposition on the sideline as he will be again on Sunday when leading Maynooth, they looked set for a historic three-in-a-row. That was until Coffey stepped up to land an unforgettable equalising point from near the right touchline with almost the last kick of the game.

From there, the rest is history as Sarsfields went on to win the replay.

He would not mind producing a moment as memorable again on Sunday, but insists that all that matters is getting his hands on the Dermot Bourke Cup.

"I was lucky throughout the decade before that to play in a number of Sarsfields versus Moorefield finals and it does add another dimension in the town. It was a real motivating factor for us whenever they succeeded, and likewise for them, so to get over the line that day was massive.

"But it's a final now. I'm not going to try and pick and choose how we get over the line. If we can get our hands on that cup in any way, we'll be very happy."

In an ever-evolving game that increasingly values pace in transition and powerful athletic running, Coffey is something of a throwback.

The game often seems to slow down when he gets on the ball and his range of kicking, vision and ability to score from distance make him one of the county's most influential footballers.

He acknowledges that he is not often at the front of the pack during training runs, but he is quick to point out he is not lagging behind either.

"The lads give me a bit of grief for that now, I won't lie, but at the end of the day it's football, so kicking is still important and a lot of the hard work goes on between the ears. I'd like to think I'm still fit and, if I'm not at the top of the runs, I'm somewhere in the middle of the road," he laughed.

As a keen observer of football in the county, he has been a great admirer of what Maynooth have achieved this year and is fully aware of the challenge they will pose on Sunday.

He believes the group-stage meeting between the sides was much closer than the eventual six-point margin suggested.

"We got a goal with the last kick of that game. There was a bit of a safety net there with both teams already through to the quarter-final. Obviously you don't want to lose, but both teams knew that even if they did, they were still in the quarter-final.

"We're both still here in the final and there's no safety net on Sunday. We both went for it that day and it was a highly competitive game, but Maynooth have developed. In the last four weeks alone they've beaten county champions Athy and then the favourites, Naas. That's no mean feat and they are growing in stature. We'll pay them the respect they deserve."