Latest news with #Noctor
The Irish Sun
5 days ago
- Sport
- The Irish Sun
Former Donegal GAA star makes All-Ireland final prediction as he insists ‘if anybody can stop David Clifford, it's Jim'
JASON NOCTOR hopes Donegal can lift Sam Maguire before Donegal Boston take on Aidan McAnespie's GFC in the Boston championship. Noctor will watch tomorrow's All-Ireland final from the sofa at 10.30am. He will then prepare to face 2 Jason Noctor, right, hopes Donegal can win the All-Ireland Credit: Dáire Brennan / SPORTSFILE 2 But he warned they have a job on their hands to stop David Clifford Credit: Seb Daly/Sportsfile And he hopes fellow Killybegs men Hugh McFadden and Eoghan Ban Gallagher can deliver the goods at But Noctor knows Jim McGuinness has a job on his hands to limit Kerry's He told SunSport: 'The All-Ireland is on at 10.30am here on Sunday morning and our match is at 5pm, so I'll watch it at home. 'The whole spine of the club is Donegal — from the chairman, management and players. Read More on GAA 'There's around 20 players from Donegal in all three teams. Not everyone is around all the time but everyone chips in.' Noctor is not underestimating Donegal's opponents as he has played with Kingdom stars on the US east coast. He revealed: 'It's Kerry . Every player from that county can play. They come out to Boston and when we do basic hand-passing drills, it drives them mental! 'If there's a man with a plan to contain David Clifford, it's Jim. It's a 50-50 game but the heart says Donegal.' Most read in GAA Football
The Irish Sun
5 days ago
- Sport
- The Irish Sun
Jason Noctor reflects on Donegal regrets and Jim McGuinness' influence from Boston
FROM DONEGAL to Dorchester, Jim McGuinness' influence never left Jason Noctor. Growing up in Killybegs, Noctor was a man of many talents. 2 Patrick McBrearty celebrates with Jason Noctor in 2011 - Noctor left inter-county football behind at the age of 22 2 Noctor still carries what he learned from Jim McGuinness 14 years ago The green up St Cummin's Hill was an eternal playground as the town hummed with love for football, soccer and fishing. Noctor thrived at them all but despite having been in and around McGuinness' He told SunSport: 'When I look back now at my 22-year-old self, I think, 'Why didn't I have patience?'' Boston is a bit further afield than the destination of an earlier departure from his home town when he followed old pal READ MORE ON GAA The following year, Coleman went to Noctor struggled to break into Paul Cooke's first team at The Showgrounds and after a brief stint at Finn Harps, home called once more. Following a couple of years in the League of Ireland, he missed He starred in Killybegs' run to the 2010 county final and the phone rang after that loss to Naomh Conaill. Most read in GAA Football That winter, the 21-year-old was in the Downings Bay Hotel as the man in front of him pointed to the hills, the houses and the people. Earlier that summer, their county's seniors had played just two Championship games, losing to Down and Armagh. Daniel O'Donnell and Daithi O Se have hilarious argument The year before, they reached an All-Ireland quarter-final but shipped 1-27 to Cork. They were waiting for a team. McGuinness was talking about Donegal and he was talking All-Irelands. Looking back now, Noctor was too young to fully take in what was going on as McGuinness captivated the room. The tenacious defender was a big fish in a small pond in Killybegs but this was totally different as he went to war for a jersey with men such as Neil and Eamon McGee, Paddy McGrath, Frank McGlynn, Kevin Cassidy and Karl Lacey. He was in the squad when Donegal conquered Ulster for the first time in 19 years in 2011 but training was full of ravenous characters and nailing down a place seemed impossible. After just one year, he left the fold. Now 36, Noctor added: 'When young lads come out here to Boston to play, I pass on my experience and tell them they have to be patient. 'Some lads are better at it than others but at club level, you're used to it being all about you and then next thing you know you're on the periphery of a squad. 'You're thinking, 'What's going on here?' You think you're doing the right things and you probably are, but the manager might see it differently. 'It was patience for me and maybe I wasn't mature enough, but I regret not sticking with it a lot. For me just newly coming in, I was 21 and what's actually happening goes over your head a bit. 'As a young fella, maybe it's not registering as much but you could see the likes of Rory Kavanagh, Neil McGee, Neil Gallagher, Karl Lacey and Michael Murphy — who was beyond his years — were such a big part of it. 'It was laid out what we needed to do and you could see it hitting home with those older players. "I was just maybe a bit naive to it or unaware of how bad things were and how it was affecting Donegal football. The culture had to change. 'We'd won the Ulster Championship and were beaten by Dublin in the semis. 'As winter training approached, I thought about it for a long time before deciding I didn't have the heart for it and made the call. "When I chose to walk away, I had a great conversation with Jim but he told me to put on a stone and a half — and that still hasn't happened.' Donegal climbed to the summit in 2012 but Noctor went on his own journey. Killybegs reached another county final in 2013 where Murphy's Glenswilly gunned them down. He saw the Tír Chonaill seniors make another All-Ireland final in 2014, losing out to Kerry, the county the current crop will face tomorrow. STATE SIDE Calls from the States tempted him and St Catherine's bagged a league and cup soccer double in 2015 before he finally took flight. Donegal Boston has been his team for over a decade and he helped them win their sixth championship in ten years last summer. The players are different but the colours are the same. He said: 'I didn't ring Jim so he'd convince me to stay. I'd played around four games for Killybegs that year because I was in a group of around seven players on standby, not allowed to play for their clubs. 'I just got frustrated at not being able to play for the club because we were struggling that year — and you feel guilty too. 'Rory Gallagher asked me to come back in for the 2015 campaign but I declined and Paddy McDevitt in Boston had reached out to me a few times. "Paul Martin McDaid from Malin was manager and he phoned me one day when I was down working at the boats in Killybegs. 'We'd just won the Donegal League with St Catherine's and I said I'd go, and in June 2015 I was gone. 'When you move out, you think you're going to America but then you go to training and everyone is from Donegal. 'After a couple of months I decided to stay and moved to Dorchester, where the core of the club are based and it's like living in an Irish town. 'We won the Boston championship that summer and I got sorted with a job, so I stayed. Every summer is just about football, and time has flown.' And Noctor's list of past and present team-mates is frightening. Diarmuid Connolly, Ger Brennan, Paul Mannion and Shane Carthy have flown the Dublin flag in Beantown. Current Donegal stars Ciarán Thompson, Jamie Brennan, Shane O'Donnell, Caolán McGonagle and Jason McGee have all played for the club and Armagh starlets Oisín Conaty and Darragh McMullan are out there now. Liam Silke, Emlyn Mulligan, Ray Connellan, Daire Cregg — the list goes on. Carpenter Noctor captained the club to their 2018 Boston championship title with Connolly in tow. Scores of players have come and gone since. He will look on at tomorrow's All-Ireland final between Donegal and Kerry from across the pond, hoping old team-mates McBrearty and Murphy can avenge their 2014 defeat to the Kingdom. LIVE AND LEARN But he still carries what he learned from McGuinness 14 years ago. He said: 'I'm often asked to name the best I've played with but I'm blessed to have played with so many between club and county at home. 'Then there's all the fellas that have come out here and sometimes you're like, 'How did I forget him?' 'I'm very fortunate because you've got Michael Murphy and Diarmuid Connolly in there, Karl Lacey, Séamus Coleman at home. 'But I'd have Lacey right up there. When I went in with Donegal, he was so good with all the young lads in the squad and was a huge role model for me. 'He'd always take you to the side and give you advice, he helped to really mould me. When people see lads coming out here, they think they're just happy to be squad players at home but they're not. 'They're building a platform for themselves to be proper inter-county players. 'A lot of that experience with Jim and Donegal in 2011 shaped me into who I am now. 'As an older player with Donegal Boston now, I try to be like how they were with me.'
