Of body and mind: Dr Niall Moyna’s journey toward setting new Louth limitations
i) The here and now
The end of the Dublin Delaney Cup era, and what followed was a Mathew Costello coup d’etat that never was.
A goal to secure the most momentary power.
Until the true rebels, with their most orthodox stance of masterly efficiency, ground down the freakish southpaw ghost of 2010 that hung and haunted and cast a shadow of bitterness and doom over a people now freed.
There is no doubting that Sam Mulroy was the rebels’ commander in chief. His movement, belief, desire each setting the tone, a tone akin to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic as one piece of history gave a nod to the other:
“Having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment.”
Louth absorbed instruction and weaponised it.
Louth captain Sam Mulroy lifts the Delaney cup after the Leinster GAA Football Senior Championship final match between Louth and Meath at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
Another title on Dr Niall Moyna’s CV, one that rolls out like the Bayeux Tapestry.
And for a second Championship summer in succession, he plots the downfall of Monaghan, removing himself from the fibres of his being.
Humble beginnings
St Patrick’s Day, and as the snow fell, Cork legend Dinny Allen was one of Scotstown’s undoers. Nemo apparently turned to brandy and 7UP as the remedy.
For Tom Moyna and the Monaghan boys it was a case of cold feet as the All-Ireland title of 1979 went to Nemo Rangers.
The search for a place they’d never been went on. Homeward bound, and Moyna’s pub for brothers Tom and Niall. Grá infused disappointment, for they didn’t lick it off the grass.
Scotstown manager David McCague with Darren Hughes and Rory Beggan at half time during the Ulster Club Senior Football Championship quarter-final match against Erne Gaels played at Brewster Park, Enniskillen on Saturday 16th November 2024. Picture Margaret McLaughlin
Father Tommy’s goal in the 1945 Ulster minor final paved the way to victory, not long after an ice cream in Carrickmacross’ Venice Café. Ice cold.
A chicken farmer by trade, the pub and Tommy’s poultry were the epicentre of the Moyna’s working world, perhaps even childhood.
Sinn Féin TD Matt Carthy once spoke of Monaghan’s entrepreneurial spirit, one borne out of necessity and a sense of abandonment along the unruly border they call bandit country.
In dire straits in Scotstown came a creative spark, be it business or be it football.
Last week Niall Moyna returned to St Macartan’s College as a former pupil, a former member of staff and a doctor amongst other things.
A PhD in exercise physiology from the University of Pittsburgh hangs proudly on his washing line of accomplishments.
One of Dr Niall Moyna’s specialities on the Dublin City University website is the following:
“How gene polymorphisms help to explain inter-individual variability in biological responses to exercise.”
To put it simply, one person may gain muscle rapidly, while another sees little to no progress.
Similarly, one person might feel energized after working out, whereas someone else could feel exhausted or notice minimal improvement. It’s all to do with genes.
DCU captain Ciarán Caulfield with the cup as he celebrates with team-mates after their side's victory in the Electric Ireland Higher Education GAA Sigerson Cup final match between UCD and DCU DÉ at the GAA Connacht Centre of Excellence in Bekan, Mayo. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
Complex stuff but, Moyna, the master of propagation, victim of his own brilliant communication, is so in touch with the layman that he reduces the impact of his own genius.
Niall’s youth was much about athletics, his fascination with his own anatomy, how he could improve, improve, improve….
He was barely 30 by the time Seán McCague came calling, with Monaghan’s Ulster title of ‘88 thawing out that snow and some of the lingering anguish of ‘79.
Eugene ‘Nudie’ Hughes was the star as the local papers soon proclaimed that Monaghan ‘were no longer prepared to be classed as a Cinderella county’.
Back then, backroom teams went under the radar in a fashion they never will again.
But Niall was a player too, and current Scotstown manager David McCague is keen to make that point, describing him as ‘the modern day wing-back’.
Never content to sit. On he went.
Like Shane McGowan’s quest for a pair of brown eyes:
“And a rovin’, a rovin’, a rovin’ I’ll go.”
Leaders lead
Not quite Van Diemen’s Land but Australia nonetheless. Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth. Three Tests officially, but a whole lot more in terms of development for some and patience for others.
2005 was the third year that an Irish U17 squad played a Compromise Rules series against the crème de la crème of Aussie young guns.
Having been selected by his county minor management, Neil McAdam took on Ulster trials led by Tony Scullion.
Soon he was in Irish green rather than that of Monaghan Harps, with Paddy Andrews and Michael Murphy among his comrades.
Connaire Harrison battles with Neil McAdam at Clones.
Indeed that was the beginning of Pearce Hanley’s AFL love affair, with Glenties’ Eoin Wade and Meath’s Shane O’Rourke the other starlets.
As they boarded a flight, it was Down Under and the opportunity of a lifetime under the wing of one Niall Moyna and another Monaghan man in the shape of his logistics manager Páraic Duffy.
The man that McAdam only knew from the magic, drivellous tales of Moyna’s Bar; the man in the athletics pictures papered over the walls of St Macartan’s in Monaghan town was suddenly before him.
Last week as Moyna returned to his old stomping ground, it was he and the boy with Australian dreams that sat as the final two remaining in the staff room:
“I left DCU in 2011, and myself and Niall hadn’t crossed paths since. What he’s done with Louth, one thing that man didn’t need was a CV topper!
“His biggest strength is his communication, his interpersonal skills. He obviously has the biological understanding of the body then too.
“Those things go hand in hand with GAA. Back in 2009 he was taking muscle biopsies and researching trauma from training load when no one was doing it.”
Less is more
St Vincent’s, 2008, the golden one. All-Ireland glory.
Three years on Pat Gilroy and Dr Niall Moyna were spearheading an intercounty All-Ireland with a Dublin side so few believed in.
Stephen Cluxton kicks his famous 2011 winner. Dublin lost semi-finals in 2012 and 2014 before domination ensued.
Ger Brennan’s knack for winning, from boy to man, from Vincent’s to Dublin to Louth, has had a common denominator.
Two men that helped lay the foundations for a revolution and the greatest Gaelic football side there’s ever been stand at each other’s side once more.
So what did Moyna claim was his secret sauce? What separated the indefectible Dubs?
“I would say there is one major reason, one major reason and people will laugh at this. They do less than anyone else.
“When I was involved with DCU, people find it hard to believe, but we did no conditioning at all. Zero.
“I took them into the lab and did tests and saw they already ranked in the top 5 per cent for their age.
“So we did nothing. We met twice a week and everything was game-based. Using our time wisely.”
Kevin Nolan holds aloft the Sam Maguire Cup after Dublin's 2011 All-Ireland final victory over Kerry. Picture by Seamus Loughran
It was on that trip to Australia where Moyna convinced a young Kevin Nolan to take a DCU secondary teaching course in PE and biology as the primary teaching plans soon went out the window.
Having boarded a flight with Paddy Andrews and Moyna, the three would stand together as the confetti rained down on the holy grail of Croke Park just six years later.
Gilroy’s Dublin had reached the summit.
Mickey Whelan followed Gilroy from St Vincent’s, with the latter having played under Whelan at full-forward for that club title of ‘08.
Moyna went on to Dublin too, but by then, he had long since established himself in Nolan’s mind:
“I lived on campus in DCU, all lads in the one house, and Niall had us up for 6am runs around the track. I remember I’d be getting sick, doing MAS runs before they were a done thing.
“In DCU there was that real buzz, I was playing Sigerson football from my freshers’ year on, and every Sigerson team that I was on, Niall was there.
“He’d be gymming himself, you’d see him on the rowing machine, he was an animal.
“He always preached club football, be it with DCU or Dublin. You start there and you finish there.
“It’s great to see him being successful with another county.”
Tommy Durnin of Louth and Gavin McPhillips (left) and Kieran Duffy of Monaghan contest a high-ball at Integral GAA Grounds in Drogheda
As Moyna made a life in the capital, Nolan reversed the trend to build his nest in the heart of Monaghan’s countryside, and is now the Farney County’s minor manager.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
No coach ever wishes to face their own clan, but in Dr Niall Moyna’s world, emotional overthinking will not be entertained. There’s a job to be done.
A steely Ger Brennan was a far cry from a boy 14 years ago, but now he’s very much his own man.
His Louth will be well versed, of body and mind.
But in Moyna’s bar on Saturday afternoon, the scientist will be one of their own in glory or in defeat.
It begins and it ends with the club as the man himself says, from a snowy St Patrick’s Day to an end undetermined.
For now the chapter is Louth, and Cedral St Conleth’s Park of Newbridge could prove to be quite the page turner.
