GAA: The end of an era in the 'Swa following the retirement of an icon of Derry hurling

Next Friday Ruairi Convery will get married before moving to live in Armagh.  His hurling career had reached a crossroads.  He didn’t want to, but circumstances made him decide to end a 21 year span with Swatragh senior hurlers.  He sat down with Michael McMullan to look back in time….   It’s the first Wednesday night of April and Kevin Lynch’s are the visitors to Davitt Park. On the surface, it could be seen as the opening league outing of the year.  A new beginning. For Swatragh, it was.  In a deeper sense of the word. For the first time in 21 years, there was someone missing. On the right hand side, just inside the dressing room door, Ruairi Convery was no longer seated. After a stellar career, the 35 year-old icon of Derry hurling had wielded his caman for the last time. Next Friday he will get married to Sarah Reavey and the couple will reside in her native Whitecross.  Sarah will commute to Dublin for work, with Ruairi travelling to St Mary’s Magherafelt, where he teaches. His two year contract ends this summer.  Depending on how it pans out, he too may head down the M1 in search of work. Finding time to commit to Swatragh was going to be difficult. “It had been playing on my mind,” Convery recalls of last season. He had retired from county hurling at the end of 2017 but Collie McGurk enticed him out as an emergency goalkeeper for the Christy Ring Cup. “I even thought after the intermediate championship last year, I was thinking that finishing the way we did, winning the championship….that I’d have been happy enough.” In Ulster, their defeat to St Gall’s struck in his throat.  Especially as they went on and won Ulster. Eamon Hassan took over from Danny McGrellis as senior boss and gave ‘Big R’ time to consider his future. “I’d have loved to play on forever to be honest but I think there are a few contributing factors that are playing against me now,” Convery outlined of his age, the miles on the clock and his pending Orchard County address. “I wouldn’t be the person that would come and go at training…there one night and not there the next.  I have never done it, so I am not going to do it now at 35 years of age and keep a 19 or 20 year-old out of a place who deserves it more than me because he has been training more.” Weeks after telling Hassan he was ‘seriously considering’ his future, Convery came to a decision. “Eamon was the very first manager I played under at U6 and I’d like to have been fit to have given him a full year at it this year.” But his mind was made up. Rather than posting a message on social media, Ruairi headed into the Swatragh dressing room.  He wanted to tell those he soldiered with of his decision – face to face. “That was the hardest thing,” he recalls, of the emotional moment.  “I hadn’t been about all year and I landed up that Monday evening at training.  I came into the changing rooms and told them all.” As Swatragh’s management plan for their first season without their talisman, it is time to move on. They know what they have lost. “A dedicated and committed individual who never let you down at any time.  He always relished a challenge,” Eamon Hassan summarised of Convery’s time in the green and white hoops. In their first game without Convery, Swatragh were beaten 2-14 to 1-9 by Kevin Lynch’s, who didn’t have his ball-winning ability to contend with. “He had the best hand in hurling I’ve ever come across and he didn’t protect it either,” Hinphey said about the man he battled for and against, since their mid-teens. “I lost count of the amount of times I went up with the hurl and he went with the hand….and he caught it anyway.” In Hinphey’s book, any free conceded within 100 yards was a scoring chance for Swatragh. “It was strange not playing against him in the first round of the league,” he added. “It there is a man who deserves to put the long legs up, it’s Ruairi.  He owes no one anything after a hurling career he can be seriously proud of.” *** At the foot of Swatragh’s Stoney Park, there is a small plot of land.  It has a playground at one end and a trim trail around the side of a small pitch. ‘The Big Park’, as Convery calls it, was the scene for his first ever hurling coaching session under Eamon Hassan and Seamus McNicholl. “That’s my very first memory,” he recalls.  “I was maybe five or six years of age.  It was probably U12 training and I had to get going to it.” Watching his father James playing for Swatragh sowed the early seeds of an illustrious career. “There was him, Roddy Anthony (Quinn) and Iggy Quinn – I sort of looked up to them boys at that age.” Going to training was a ‘no brainer’ for a young Convery who ‘loved’ the game from the first time he saw it. “Whenever I went to watch them boys play, they never played with much finesse.  There wasn’t much hurling played, they were more like hallions and they’ll tell you that themselves.” With that core of ‘eight to ten’ men in their mid-30s, with children all of the one age, it was time to make a huge push. “They brought men up from the south,” Convery remembers of the early days. Former Derry manager Kevin McNaughton, a friend of Roddy Anthony Quinn, helped direct operations. “He helped with the structures.  He came two or three times a week and he took us at senior level for a few years and I would have a lot of respect for Kevin too.” Among the contributing factors to Swatragh’s hurling development was the ground work put in by the generation that came before.  Convery never forgot it. “They were taking some serous hammerings and they knew they were going to get a hammering but they knew there was this core group of players coming in our age group and coming rolling in behind us. “They had to keep going, take the defeats and keep the youth development coming through and it worked out. “Thankfully we got our senior championship. If you asked me when I first started playing senior hurling, I would’ve thought it would’ve been very unlikely.” Success on the way up through the ages helped Swatragh’s mission. They won the U12 title in 1996 with a hard-fought victory over Lavey. “Of the 15 that started that day, to the team that won the senior championship in 2012, only two of us were still playing – myself and Conor Quinn - so there was a serious dropout. “A lot didn’t play senior hurling and were even gone before minor.  That was the contributing factor to us not winning the minor championship.  ‘Screen beat us and probably deserved to beat us that day in the semi-final.” The U14 championship was won with a victory over Banagher, as the curtain-raiser to the senior final. “There was a serious breeze going down the pitch and I can mind it well.  I was full-back when we were playing against the breeze and full-forward when we were playing with the breeze, so I got a few scores that day too - it helped when I was six foot two at that stage too.” By the time it came to U16 level, Ballinascreen were their final opponents.  With poor conditions and pitch availability scare, a toss for venue saw the game fixed for Davitt Park. Going into injury time, Swatragh were awarded a free and Convery fired over to win the title. “I can mind it well.  Martin Kearney, had a broken arm and missed the final.  I remember him running onto the pitch.  It was a game we just about scraped through and then we lost the minors.” Coming behind was a group of players, including the likes of Mickey Kirkpatrick, Mickey McKenna, Declan and Dermot McNicholl that went on lift the 2004 minor championship and form the basis of a team to challenge at senior level. *** The start of Convery’s 21 year senior career came out of the blue.  He was a man among boys at underage, but he had a firm grasp of the basic skills. His sweet strike of the ball saw him make an early foray into the Poc Fada scene, where he got to the Ulster U14 final. By the start of his first U16 year senior manager Jim B Bradley came calling. The league was over but he was on the look-out for a goalkeeper ahead of their championship clash with Banagher and a youthful Convery fitted the bill. “He asked me would I do it,” remembers Convery.  “Obviously, he had to ask the auld boy could I do it.  There was a bit of persuading to get him to allow me but I was keen to get playing. “I made my senior debut when I was 14 actually. It was up in Ballinascreen.  Banagher beat us handy enough in the end up.  I mind Gary Biggs and Danny McGrellis got the two goals past me that day.” Among the defence in front of him was Iggy Quinn, Gerard ‘Titch’ McGuckin and Dermot Friel in there. That was the start of Convery’s senior career. The following year, he moved to the attack, where he played in the ‘majority’ of the league games.  In the championship, they took Banagher to a replay before going down by two points with Convery scoring his first ever goal. “You remember those younger days, it was an experience but you had boys that were always looking after you.  I enjoyed it and wouldn’t change it but looking back on it now, playing senior hurling at 14 and 15 is pretty mad.” After getting to county finals every second year in his underage, it wasn’t until 2008 that Swatragh made the breakthrough. After winning the Ulster and Derry leagues, they went into the final but lost to Kevin Lynch’s by three points.  It was their only defeat of the season. “That was my biggest regret, clubwise,” admitted Convery.  ”We got a wee bit carried away with ourselves.  There were too many banners and painted cars and we forgot about the game-plan. “I remember missing a penalty that day and it still irks with me yet.  That’s the one that got away and I blame myself for missing that penalty.  That’s the type of person I was.  I always went home and analysed my own performance and the team performance.” It was going to take another three fruitless years, but they were kicking the door of destiny harder with every passing year. *** The last time Derry won a football All-Ireland, Ruairi Convery scored the game-changing goal before half time in the 2002 minor final. Seated in the comfort of the Oak Leaf restaurant, the primary topic is Convery’s club hurling career. Then comes a different angle. “Football or hurling?” “I tried to give as much to both,” was Ruairi’s immediate response, as he topped up his tea. “People will say I am a better hurler.” Did he enjoy hurling more? “I wouldn’t say there was any more enjoyment in one over the other.  I just enjoy playing it.  It depends what way you are going, what way the team is going,” Convery continues. “You enjoy football better if you are playing well.  You would be playing poorly at hurling and vice versa.” He then hits the rewind button…back to 2010 and the tenure of Eamon Kavanagh as Swatragh football manager. The former Tyrone footballer dropped a host of the club’s dual players, including Convery, leading to a raft of defeats. “I never had any sort of favouritism,” Convery stressed. “They wouldn’t play us because we were playing hurling and the manager at the time reckoned you couldn’t do both.” The committee then parted company with Kavanagh.  One of new boss Artie Kearney’s first ports of call was Swatragh hurling training, where he met Convery and immediately the dual players were all back in tandem. It was too late for 2010.  The damage was irreversible and Swatragh dropped to intermediate. “He (Artie) is genuine.  He said he wasn’t a puppet and was doing it his own way.  He was managing the team and wanted all us boys back again.” The following year he steered them to the intermediate final where they lost to Craigbane. The fall before the rise. *** Two years after it was said it couldn’t be done, the big ball and wee ball were treated in equal measure. “It’s a bit of common sense, communication between mangers and not killing boys (with training) and that’s what we did in 2012 and it worked out well for us. “You need the right type of manager in there that knows how to get the best out of his players.  A selfish man there won’t work.  You need to be fit to have some sort of leverage between both managements that will allow players to play.” In football Swatragh went on better than 2011 and took the title as the first leg of the double. Sean McGuckin and Stephen O’Kane were managing the hurling team that year and were younger than some of the players.  Injury cut short their careers, they threw their lot into management, “Sean did the managing and Stephen did the coaching, they worked well together,” Convery points out. Though he didn’t say it, it was fitting that Banagher were Swatragh’s opponents in the hurling final, as they aimed to climb the mountain never conquered before. With just two minutes gone on the clock Convery flicked Mickey Conway’s high ball to the net for an electric start.  It was the beginning of a 1-6 tally, with his brother Christopher bagging 1-1. The battle continued but as the final headed down the final furlong, Ruairi could see the light.  There was a gap and he could enjoy the closing stages of a dream that began back in Swatragh park in his early years. “I remember the last point.  Conor (O’Kane) pucked it out and I caught it in the middle of the pitch.  I drove the ball as hard as I could over the bar.  I knew the game was over so I could enjoy those wee moments. On the final whistle he shook hands with Gregory Biggs, who he had played against on his senior debut. “There is a picture on Facebook of me shaking hands with Gregory and Mickey Conway in the background, he had the helmet ripped of him and there was sheer elation.” It was a memory over two decades in the making from the early underage days. “I didn’t want to leave the pitch, nobody wanted to leave Celtic Park.  That experience, we will never forget.” At that stage, with the football alongside, it was week on week and the momentum was gathering.  There was always another day to prepare for. But back at the club’s hall, the Fr Collins Cup made its first appearance.  The players were up on the stage with a host of speeches. Looking down at the floor, Convery saw the real meaning of what they had achieved.  It hit home. “Seeing them boys that managed us at underage, it meant so much to them.  Some of them were actually crying, it meant that much. “They had saw us as boys progressing up through the ranks, they were taking their hammerings for us and that championship was for them as it was for us…if not more so. “We put the work in that year, or for the two years.  They did it for 20 years to get us to the level we were at.” 2012 was Convery’s career highlight. *** Aside from life on the pitch, his life is richer for those he has played with and against. “You always remember the friendships you have made.  The players you made friends with when you are playing (with the) county.” One such player knows him better than most.  A soldier closer to home. “We lined out on the same team sheet in almost every game for school, club and county since we were about eight years old,” Conor Quinn outlines. “He’s had a massive influence on hurling in the village of Swatragh since making his senior debut.  The sport in both club and county will be the poorer for his absence.” That’s the type of friendship Convery relishes. Both within Swatragh and outside. “I made some great friends.  The two Hinpheys (Kevin and Liam Óg), Alan Grant, Breandan Quigley, Paddy Henry…and all the boys that I played along with for years. “Even the older boys.  I met Emmett McKeever at a concert in Dublin, had a few drinks with him and you appreciate those wee things now. “You have the same respect and rapport.  It is something that I appreciate.  I know there wasn’t a whole lot of medals in the career, but you can look back on that. What would he tell the young Ruairi Convery now if he met him? “Same as any young boy, if you are not enjoying it then don’t do it.  The main reason for my long career was that I enjoyed it.” Anytime hurling is talked about and Derry or Swatragh creeps up, the name of Ruairi Convery will be to the forefront. A career well spent.  A man well respected.  One of life’s good guys.  A pair of boots impossible to fill.