By Michael McMullan

THE conversation doesn’t need to be a long one before you appreciate Tommy Coleman’s passion for both football and Clann Éireann.

He managed their seniors to glory for their third title in 2021 but is now further back on the production line.

Coleman is at the helm with the club minors who take on Magherafelt in Sunday’s Ulster semi-final.

It’s a surprise to hear it’s the club’s third minor championship. Coleman agrees.

“That’s hard to believe,” he said before quickly rattling off the previous years, 1969 and the 2017 crop.

Eight of the team who lost to St Eunan’s in Ulster have since picked up senior medals.

Armagh duo Conor Turbitt and Tiernan Kelly were among them but Barry McCambridge missed out by a couple of days. The typical GAA bad birthday.

“I always keep his dad going about it,” Coleman said with a laugh.

Before a ball was kicked this season, Clann Éireann were in the mix for minor championship honours in Armagh.

Dromintee were “slight favourites” with Carrickcruppen, who Clann Éireann beat in the final, another fancied horse.

“Crossmaglen are always there or thereabouts and Killeavy are always a good side there at minor level,” Coleman added.

“You had nine teams and really any of them could have really had a real good shot at it.”

Clann Éireann got their house in order and came through to win it. It was a group who were in and around silverware at u-12 and u-14 level before falling away since.

Coleman came in as minor manager this season with the same management team he had at senior level, Mark McCann, Kevin O’Loan and Dan Barton, joined by Stephen McCusker.

“We got a great response from them,” Coleman said, hailing the efforts of the squad.

“They worked really, really hard for us and we got a reward at the end of it.”

After winning the Armagh title in August, the difficulty was managing the gap until their win over Irvinestown.

Some of the older players went in with the club’s second senior team for the Intermediate Championship.

A run to the semi-final gave them experience of training with the club’s senior team, including their All-Ireland winners with Armagh.

After that, they had players involved in the MacRory Cup with St Colman’s and St Ronan’s. The teams met last weekend with the Newry side pulling through.

Clann Éireann aren’t on their own. Talk to any club minor manager and they’ll tell you the same.

Their work now is about pulling the players together to reinforce their own gameplan after coming in from different school setups.

“I play a totally different type of football and we go for it,” Coleman said.

“Myself and the boys (management team) will get working this week to get them back into the way that we want to play football.”

Coleman isn’t worried about his players’ fitness, so long as they don’t pick up knocks and sores from other games.

“They are a real good bunch of lads,” he said. “They’re intelligent enough, too so they’ll be able to adapt pretty quickly, I hope.”