Copyright belfastlive
Over the course of the last decade, the Ulster Club Championship has been won by six different teams. Only one of those clubs will return for the 2025 renewal. Kilcoo’s grip on the Frank O’Hare Cup remains as firm as ever and they’ll swiftly turn their attention to an assault on the Seamus McFerran Cup. Recent provincial winners Errigal Ciaran, Glen, Slaughtneil and Crossmaglen bowed out at the semi-final stages of their respective county championships while Gaoth Dobhair lost out to Glenties after extra-time in the Donegal final. Meanwhile, Kilcoo’s dynasty continues and includes becoming the first team to win seven successive Down SFC titles. They’ve won 13 of the last 14 county titles from 2012 to 2025, a run interrupted by Burren in 2018. The Magpies also won the 2009 title with Paul Devlin and Down boss Conor Laverty collecting their 14th senior medals following Sunday’s six-point defeat of Carryduff in Páirc Esler . While Laverty made a late cameo, Devlin was integral to their victory with 1-3 including a crucial first half penalty. Martin Corey came in along with Joe McMahon to take over the perennial champions following the departure of Karl Lacey. One of the first things he noticed was Devlin’s commitment to excellence and his insatiable appetite for training. When asked to sum up his Man-of-the-Match display, Corey remarked: “That’s just Paul Devlin. “That’s not happening by accident. He is training all year round. . .he never misses training. “He works very hard and he's one of the hardest working players that we have. I know people wouldn't think that but he is, he works so hard away from the field, his life revolves around Kilcoo and he's a real good lad in the club. “He coaches the team so he is steeped in Kilcoo, so I'm glad to see a player like him put in a performance the way he did it.” And Devlin’s ethos mirrors that of the Kilcoo club in general according to their manager. “I think it's just more community driven than anything else. I think they're a hard-working community and hard-working families and they're bringing that work ethic, those values that they have at home, they're just bringing it to the training and that's what it is.” For Devlin himself, he says the new rules have given him a new lease of life and he says he will enjoy the celebrations after a viral infection left him hospitalised earlier this year. “I'm not going to lie, I've probably looked after myself more now than I did previous years because I know how important it is to the new game,” said Devlin. “The new game kind of suits me, I can reserve my energy and use it going forward rather than going back, which I feel it's like a revelation to myself. “I am looking forward to celebrating because I don't know when I'm going to be back here again, we can't take it for granted. “Maybe five or six years ago when I was a lot younger, I said we'll be back next year and now that I'm at that stage in my career where an injury could set in or something could go wrong. “I was in hospital at the start of the year there and it was a bad infection. You know, these wee things you can take for granted when we're in finals every year.” Winning has become second nature to Kilcoo at this stage, but making history by winning seven-in-a-row is something that Devlin will savour. He added: “Nobody can take that away from us for now. You always hear of these records being broken and the people of different clubs have one. “It's nice that we have this here that has never been done before and it's the one thing that probably that now we can stand out among the rest which is nice.”
