*Darren Moroney. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
DARREN MORONEY has been given permission to play for Rice College in the Br Edmund Ignatius Rice Cup Final (Senior D Football) Final this Saturday afternoon.
Manager Denis O’Driscoll has confirmed that the Éire Óg dual star will be lining out with the school as they go in search of All-Ireland glory.
Moroney was not permitted to feature in their All-Ireland semi-final win by the Clare Under-20 hurling management, but he and his clubmate Niall Doyle, another of Terence Fahy’s troops, have both been released for this Saturday’s decider, O’Driscoll has told The Clare Echo. “We’re hoping we’ll have a full panel. We do have Darren and Niall Doyle. One or two lads are nursing injuries, but fingers crossed we’ll have everybody available”.
Rice College defeated Causeway Comprehensive of Kerry in the Munster final before overcoming Mayo’s St Brendan’s Belmullet in the All-Ireland semi-final. Denis is hopeful that those challenging games will stand to his group when they meet Monaghan school Largy College in Tubberclair this Saturday. “The team has shown good resilience in the last couple of games in particular. The Munster final was a really tight game all the way through, I think the sides were level five times and it changed hands three or four times. They showed great character to come through in the last five minutes of that because things did go against us like the penalty which Tony Burke saved. We went a point down and we still managed to come back and score a winning goal”.
He continued, “The last day against Belmullet they dominated large portions of that game, both with and against the wind, but we stayed in the battle and got the crucial scores again. They have shown great character to come through those two games, some of the earlier games we were comfortable enough, but those two games really tested us.”
Looking ahead to the final, the St Breckan’s clubman feels that he has a vast amount of experience to call upon within the group. “It’s a huge game for a lot of lads but we do have lads with some good experience. Niall Doyle was part of the Clare minor hurling team last year, they got to an All-Ireland final. Jack McAllister and Charlie Lenihan were part of the Doora/Barefield senior football panel that made the county final and obviously Darren Moroney was with Éire Óg in both codes. James Rafferty is with the Clare Under-20 footballers and he was a county minor last year, so we do have some experience built up but for some of our players it’s definitely one of the biggest games they’ll have played in”.
Rice College are the fourth Clare school to make a post primary Schools All-Ireland football final since 2022. They follow in the footsteps of Ennistymon CBS (2022), St Joseph’s Spanish Point (2023) and Ennistymon Community School (2025).
Their manager feels that this success is vital for the development of football in the county. “There’s great work being done in schools all over the county, Kilmihil won a Munster last week as well. Anything that helps raise the profile a little bit is very welcome. We’re delighted that we were able to have a bit of success this year. We were very lucky to have a good group in fourth, fifth and sixth year and you try and make the most of them while you have them. There’s a lot of excitement around the school, it’s been building all week. We’ve received lots of encouraging messages from past pupils which is very nice to see, and the players are hopefully taking some energy from that”.
