‘Everyone in our dressing room is hugely driven’

Walking through the corridors of the main administration building in the Centre of Excellance at Dunganny, Mark Crawley stops once or twice and looks at the pictures of the Meath teams from the past that decorate the walls in that fine facility.

Many famous faces look back at him. Players who were part of the various teams that claimed the Sam Maguire during the glory years – but one man in particular catches his eye.

“Trevor Giles set the benchmark for every young footballer,” he says. “Every young lad growing up would, should, aspire to be something like Trevor.”

Now 30 Crawley was just a nipper when the Royals claimed All-Ireland titles in 1996 and ’99 with Giles a central figure, but the achievements of those teams clearly left their mark on him.

Crawley was in Dunganny for the media night ahead of the SFC, IFC and JFC county finals. As captain of St Vincent’s he was required to show up and talk to members of the media about his team’s JFC final appearance against Clann na nGael. Affable and articulate he was happy to do so.

The media event was held a little more than 48 hours after his team had defeated Ballinlough in a JFC semi-final encounter that went to extra-time.

It looked in that game that St Vincent’s would lose out. They trailed by a point but with seconds remaining in normal time defender Ryan Hand lofted over a point to force extra-time. It was then the Saints took control and powered their way to victory – and another appearance in a JFC final.

“There’s plenty of football intelligence in this team, we play it as we see it, and Ryan spotted the opportunity, he got up there. It doesn’t matter if it’s a corner back or corner forward who scores, everyone is comfortable on the ball so whoever is in the right position give him the ball, give him the ball,” It was an approach that certainly worked for the Ardcath side on this occasion.

That resilience, that grittiness to confront, and refuse to accept, what appeared inevitable defeat is a central aspect of this St Vincent’s team – and it has got them out of a quite a few scrapes in this year’s JFC campaign. “There’s a cultural thing within the club, we never throw in the towel, historically we never give in,” is how he puts it.

To back up his stance, he points out how St Vincent’s won two of their opening group games by only a point, seeing the fixtures out and securing a win, when they could easily have crumbled.

He readily accepts that his, and his colleagues, desire for success this year is fuelled by the hurtful fall-out from last year’s JFC final defeat to Dunsany, the game finishing 1-5 to 0-7. It was certainly a day to forget for the Saints.

He talks of the hurt losing a county final brings and how a player, a team, simply has to learn from a defeat and move on. Use the pain, the regret, as a source of motivation; seek to turn a deadening negative into a positive.

“You have to sit with it for the winter and it’s not a nice place to be but you just have to keep coming back, year after year.

“That (last year’s loss to Dunsany) is pushing us this year. We sat down at the start of this year and asked ourselves: Where do we want to go from here?

“You can feel sorry for yourself or get back on the horse and push on.”

They took the latter route.

Crawley has certainly experienced plenty of the good, the bad and the downright forgettable with St Vincent’s. This is, he says, his 13th season in the first team. During that time he has been part of a journey full of highs and lows.

He was just at the foothills of his career when St Vincent’s won a Junior B FC in 2016. They pushed on to claim the JFC in 2021 only to last one year in the intermediate grade before dropping back down.

He says luck plays a huge part in any game, any journey and at times, crucial moments in matches, the Maroons just didn’t get the breaks they needed to stay in the IFC.

Employed in sales he has learned some invaluable lessons in his career and right up there is the importance of getting the basics right – something that applies to every player and every team if they are to harbour any hopes of success.

“Any advice I would give to a young player starting out is to be just brilliant at the basics. If you look at the Kerry team that won the All-Ireland this year, I’m sure they were preaching that. At the end of the day getting the basics right wins championships.

“Get your handling right, your kick-passing off both hands, it’s those small things, the incremental things in every game you play.

It’s not about scoring screamers from 50 yards, it’s the basics that get the job done. We stick to basics, we don’t over-complicate things.”

“Everyone in our dressing room is hugely driven, they want to achieve stuff,” adds Captain Crawley before he makes his way back down the Dunganny corridors lined with the photos of great players from the past, including his hero, the one and only Trevor Giles.