The Tyrone midfielder picked up his maiden All-Star one week after helping Edendork win their first senior county title. They followed it up with a five-point win over Clonduff in the Ulster Club SFC on Saturday night
Tyrone and Edendork midfielder Conn Kilpatrick with his PwC GAA/GPA All-Star Award at the RDS in Dublin(Image: Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile )
It is turning out to be quite the year for Conn Kilpatrick and he isn’t sure just how this journey will end.
In the last eight days, he has won a first Tyrone SFC title with Edendork, collected a first All-Star award and played a key role as St Malachy’s gained a maiden win in the Ulster Club SFC against Clonduff.
Kilpatrick, who also married his long-time partner Michaela Diamond in August, linked up with his teammates in Newry before the game after staying in Dublin on Friday night to attend the All-Stars at the RDS.
Collective accolades will always mean more, but Kilpatrick said he was honoured to join teammates Niall Morgan and Darren McCurry as an All-Star recipient.
“It’s been very special for the club,” said Kilpatrick.
“We probably don’t realise it now, but whenever you’re seeing grown men and women crying, that have soldiered in our club for years, and they’re still here to see what we created.
“When we created history last week, it made it extra special. It gives the younger generation something to aspire. A lot of us boys didn’t even play Division One growing up, so it’s been a great couple of days.”
On winning his first All-Star award, he added: “I was proud to represent Edendork and Tyrone going down there.
“You try to enjoy it. Obviously, some people maybe enjoyed it a bit more than me, but I was fully focused on here (the Clonduff game) and I was waiting until I could exit swiftly, but it was a great experience.
“It was great to mingle with boys that you play against week on week. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
“It’s a team sport and, ultimately, last year we didn’t finish where we wanted to be or win anything, but it’s nice to get recognised, of course it is, but at the end of the day, I would rather win silverware for Tyrone and Edendork than get the individual awards, but I’ll always cherish it.
“That’s three now we have in the club, four actually as Niall has two and Darren has one also.
“It’s great that you can create a bit of history for your family and friends, and really reward them with the sacrifices that they make as well with us.”
Clonduff were strongly tipped to emerge from Saturday night’s clash on Halloween, but their challenge fizzled out rather tamely.
The Hilltown men never reached the dizzying heights of their Down campaign with Edendork controlling the game for the vast majority of the contest.
Edendork were full value for their five-point win, which sets up a quarter-final meeting with first-time Antrim winners St Brigid’s in Omagh on Sunday, although Kilpatrick says they have plenty of room for improvement.
“I suppose you could say it’s bonus territory, but we were coming here looking to give this competition a rattle,” said Kilpatrick.
“We gave everybody in Tyrone respect and we picked all of them off and we played decent football.
“You probably have that wee bit of nervousness out of your system, because we created that bit of history that was done and dusted, and we wanted to come here and put on a bit of a performance.
“It probably wasn’t the best night by ourselves, by any stretch of the imagination. We gave a lot of the ball away, turnovers, we just probably weren’t firing on all cylinders.
“St Brigid’s would probably look at that game and not fear us, and they were very right to not fear us after that performance.
“But that’s the beauty of this competition, we have a week now to regroup and learn our lessons, because there’s a lot of lessons to be learned from a great Clonduff side. They really put us under pressure and we got the rub of the green whenever we maybe shouldn’t have, but as long as we got over the line, I’m happy.”
No Tyrone side other than Errigal Ciaran has gone on to lift the Seamus McFerran Cup and Edendork’s back-to-back battles with the Dunmoyle outfit in two county finals stood to St Malachy’s according to Kilpatrick.
“People around Tyrone would say, on our day, we’re a match for anybody,” added the Tyrone midfielder.
“Errigal are a great side; they were in the All-Ireland final two years ago and they were there for a reason. They still have a great calibre of player. Darragh [Canavan] was obviously out for that game which was a massive boost for us to be honest.
“We weren’t going to use that as an excuse and we knew they were going to fight that wee bit harder for him. It was a great day. We probably got lucky in the replay.
“We didn’t play particularly well in the second game, but we knew we could learn more from our performance than Errigal could from theirs. Thank God, Niall (Morgan) hit that winner.”
Conn’s younger sibling Neil was a notable absentee from Brian McGuckin’s starting 15 on Saturday and it is unlikely he’ll feature for Edendork for the remainder of the season after returning to Qatar where he works as a teacher.
“His school were very good to him – he was flying in and out and for the replay in the one week,” Kilpatrick said of his brother’s trek to feature during Edendork’s run to the Tyrone title.
“It’s tough on the body. The school actually gave him more days off which they weren’t entitled not to give him.
“So we’re forever grateful to them to help create that piece of history for our club, but I don’t think he’ll be back for the Ulster campaign. . . but never say never.”
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