By Shaun Casey

GROWING up, it was clear that Caolan Finnegan had all the attributes needed to follow in the footsteps of other marquee Crossmaglen forwards that tormented defences not only in the Orchard County but further afield as well.

Left foot, right foot and a keen eye for goal, ‘Stringer’ had it all. At just 17 years of age, he made his Senior Championship debut for Cross in 2021 and nailed a point against Madden as the Rangers kickstarted their campaign. The world was at his fingertips.

But last year, having featured in the first round of the club championship against Clan na Gael, things took a turn for the worst. Finnegan was diagnosed with a brain tumour soon after and that turned out to be his last game of football.

Finnegan sadly lost his battle with illness last week, still three months shy of his 21st birthday. At his funeral on Monday, with the club colours draped over his coffin, he made one last lap around Oliver Plunkett Park. His home. His happy place.

He didn’t get the chance to flourish in the famed black and amber jersey, where his destiny lay. But in the short space of time he was here, he showed the talent, ability, skill and grit that made him such an exciting prospect.

For the Finnegan’s, they’ve lost a son. A brother. For the Crossmaglen community that has suffered plenty of heartache down through the years, they’ll remind the family of the good days when Caolan lit up the Athletic Grounds and helped Cross to championship titles.

He rattled the net against Granemore in the 2022 county final, just when the Rangers were under the cosh slightly. In his nine championship games since entering the senior ranks, Finnegan fired home four majors.

Goals were his game. He thrived when bearing down one-on-one with the keeper. When Finnegan got the ball, he only had one thought on his mind. And more often than not, it forced the umpire to reach for the green flag.

“’Stringer’ was a massive threat when we came up against him, for the u-19s, I remember preparing for him and it was two men and three men,” said Darragh McMullen, a teammate of Finnegan’s at underage level with Armagh.

But when Madden came up against Crossmaglen, McMullen got to truly appreciate ‘Stringer’s’ gifted genius. “We would have had two men to mark him and another man sweeping in front of him.

“He was always a goal threat and I’m sure everyone has seen the clips he got on the morning of the Granemore game (the 2022 county final), it was clips of him scoring goals and that’s what he was really good at.

“I remember he used to always say, and I saw someone put it up last week, that you’ll only be remembered for scoring goals and that’s something that he backed up over the years.”

Cathal Murray coached Finnegan in St Colman’s College for one season and by the end of their 2022 MacRory Cup run, Finnegan was asked to attend an All-Star trial. He didn’t even have to play the full game to show his worth. He was immediately a nailed-on All-Star.

“He would settle for a point if he had to,” chuckled Murray of Finnegan’s goal-scoring talents. “It was all about goals when he got the ball. I remember the All-star trial, that’s why he got the All-Star because I think he banged in four goals in one half or something like that.

“They took him off as it was job done. He had done enough to get the All-Star; they just could do nothing with him and that was playing with the elite in terms of an All-Star trial.

“He was hitting the net relentlessly and there was no point going for a point if the goal was on and that probably was the way he looked at things and he would have snuck a goal out of nothing too.

“He had that pace that causes mayhem in a defence, they just didn’t know what to do with him. A man coming direct like he would, it’s hard to stop. A bit of a jink, drop the shoulder or a dummy and he’s gone. That wee yard of space and the net’s lifted, that was him.”

St Colman’s only got one year of his talents though. The MacRory Cup competition was suspended in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, with the college sharing the title with St Pat’s, Maghera, and it didn’t return until 2022.

Murray, who keeps a record of all his team selections for MacRory Cup games down through the years, was disappointed to recall that Finnegan only featured in one campaign. While he didn’t play in the blue jersey as much as he should have, he left a lasting impression.

“We didn’t play any football in 2021, there was no MacRory football,” explained Murray. “That was all because of Covid, there was no football that year. So, we only had one year of him, and it was an exceptional year that he had.

“He was just a scoring machine, particularly a goal-scoring machine. I remember him having a clicker against St Ronan’s in the Marshes. He was very tricky, his movement, his pace over that initial 10 yards to get separation, everything stuck.

“Then it was just turn and go, go straight at the man and it really would have struck fear into the defenders, just how direct he was and then a low hard shot, he always knew how to finish it in style.”

He was a man of few words inside the dressing room walls but, on the field, he was a leader of men. Quiet but confident, Finnegan set the standard with his dedication and commitment inside those white lines.

“He commanded a lot of respect from the other lads by the way in which he played and trained more so, because I would imagine he was thinking that training is only preparation for the game, so he trained the way he played,” Murray continued.

“The lads wouldn’t have looked forward to marking him in training, you would have seen them throwing the eyes up when ‘Stinger’ was coming their way, but at the same time it helped bring them on too. To learn how to defend against a player who played the way he did.

“Obviously football has gone more and more defensive this last while and he was playing against mass defences a lot of the time, but he was still able to create that separation of space for himself and to get the scores or else bring somebody else into the game.”

In 2023, he was a member of the Orchard u-20 squad that collected the first bit of underage silverware for the county since the minor All-Ireland title of 2009. In March of 2023, Armagh were awarded the Philly McGuinness Cup and crowned league champions.

They’d beaten Monaghan and Westmeath, along with a second-round draw against Louth, to reach the decider. When Longford rejected a new date for the final after it had been refixed due to heavy snowfall, Barry O’Hagan’s men were awarded the title.

Finnegan had kicked 0-3 in that first round win against the Farney men and 2-1 versus Louth as Armagh earned a draw. He failed to score against Westmeath and left the fray early due to a shoulder injury. Little did he know, that would be his last display in an orange jersey.

Finnegan should have been on the Armagh squad that lifted the Sam Maguire this year. He was good enough to have at least made the panel and would arguably have saw game time at some stage one their run to glory.

While he couldn’t impact the results with his footballing ability, he certainly helped Kieran McGeeney’s men land the ultimate prize. McMullen, a member of the Armagh team, believes Finnegan played an immense role in the Orchard County capturing Sam.

“He’s the same age as me and you’re just going out to play a game and you’re thinking that you should take nothing for granted,” added the Madden clubman. “’Stringer’ had massive potential on the football field and probably would have been playing for Armagh this year.

“He was there with us for our All-Ireland win and he came to training the week before the final and that just gave us all a wee bit of motivation to get over the line for him. It was brilliant just to see him because he was so happy to be there. He brought smiles to everyone’s faces when he came in and the boys, especially the Cross boys, they fairly drove the thing on after that.

“It really hit home with them. They were very close to him obviously and I think he was a massive factor with us winning the All-Ireland.

“I texted him after that night at training too, he had put up a photo of it (on Instagram) and I texted him saying that we were going to make sure we brought Sam home to him. He just heart reacted back to it. I actually just looked back on it the other day and it really hit home.

“I would have been very good friends with ‘Stringer’ when I was younger as well, I would have been up around Cross quite a lot and I am very friendly with the brothers and all.”

McMullen and Armagh were true to their word. A couple of days after their historic All-Ireland win, Rian O’Neill brought the trophy to the Finnegan household and young Caolan got to hold Ireland’s most prized sporting possessions on his lap.

“It was probably since the Derry game really (in the All-Ireland round-robin series), that was the day we mentioned him, and we wore the bibs that day, the ‘Care for Caolan’ bibs in the warm-up. From that day on, it was just in the back of our minds to do it for him,” McMullen added.

“He would have been here probably starting or definitely part of the squad, and he would have played a massive part for us. So just to go out and do it for him, it just shows you that life’s more important than football, really.”