Cillian McDaid: 'It's been great to get a full batch of training and games during the league'
An insignificant and unremarkable happening to everyone else. A massively significant milestone for Cillian McDaid.
On the second last Sunday of March, McDaid lined out at Pearse Stadium against the green and gold. It was the first time in his eight-season Galway existence that he started the county's final round-robin League outing. It was the first time in eight maroon seasons that his number of League starts climbed as high as five.
McDaid's spring has always been one of chasing. Chasing fitness, chasing injury-free status. Even during his AFL stint with Carlton in 2018, he was trapped in the same injury and catch-up cycle.
There's been no chasing in 2025. He came into the year nursing no complaints and so he headed into championship with as sizable a body of work under the bonnet as he'd ever put together.
We point out to McDaid that he had enjoyed a similar run in the spring of 2022 and how that season finished with him as one of the three nominees for footballer of the year. But McDaid offers the correction that he missed a portion of games in the middle of the 2022 League and so his spring appearance count on that occasion only went as high as four.
Even within that All-Star season, there was chasing.
'We've been in three or four league finals, and I never played in any of them. So, yeah, it's been great to get a full batch of training and games during the league,' begins the 27-year-old.
'It gives you a bit of confidence that you've done the work. Other years you're kind of trying to come back in the middle of a championship when the pace is quick and there's lads who've trained for six, seven, eight months straight. So, you're playing catch up.
'But at least when you have that training done and banked early, you kind of know deep down that you can last a full game or you can play two weeks in-a-row, three weeks in-a-row. It's just a bit of confidence it gives you.'
His medical history reads busy. Stress fracture in the left foot, groin issues, knee issues. The last significant input was the fractured tibia he endured while lining out for adopted club, Monivea/Abbey, in the 2023 Galway intermediate semi-final. The leg break delayed his 2024 inter-county season until the first round of the Sam Maguire series on May 18. For a good while before that, he wasn't sure if he and the 2024 season would ever cross paths.
'It definitely wasn't clearing up as fast as I'd wanted. Where I broke the leg was just very sore and it was hard to push through it. I was afraid it was going to damage it more. Despite all the reassurances, I still was hesitant.
'The medical team, at the end of the day, got me there. But there was a stage when we kind of thought it was time to just put it on ice and wait for next year. So, it was worth pushing through.'
Of course, he'd have preferred a different ending. As did they all in maroon last July. McDaid's 63rd minute wide was among a succession of second-half scoring opportunities Galway left behind in the All-Ireland final. It was he who was turned over in the final play as they chased a levelling score.
'It's a tough one to get over and you might never really get over it,' the Bank of Ireland employee continued.
'I'd say it did,' he added when asked if last year's defeat brought greater pain than the final loss of two years earlier. 'They were both pretty bad, pretty tough, but maybe the second time around, having been there before, maybe the distractions leading up to it that people would say, we didn't really have that, and we were very focused on the game. But at the end of the day, if you don't take your chances, you won't win the game. That's what happened.'
The case they're building to get over the line in 2025 is all the time strengthening. Peter Cooke's recent return bolsters a middle-third department the envy of almost every other county. A who's who: Paul Conroy, Cein Darcy, John Maher, Seán Kelly, Matthew Tierney, and McDaid himself.
'Definitely, physically, the strongest [it has been in my time there]. I'm probably one of the smaller lads out there now. So, yeah, it's a lot of height, a lot of strength. Look, it's great. We just have everyone in that area fit and available at the minute. For the last couple of years, players have been there, but, you know, maybe through form and injuries, whereas at the minute, we're very close to full strength out in that area.'
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