Ronan Sweeney on the love of his club and their legendary battles with Sarsfields

It is almost incomprehensible that a man with nine Kildare Senior Championship medals and two Leinster Club titles wasn’t GAA-focused until near adulthood.

Ronan Sweeney was largely focused on soccer growing up, but the pull of the Moorefield would eventually draw him into the heart of the club.

“I remember watching my mates play for the 1996 minor team and seeing the atmosphere on county final day, I hadn’t seen anything like it. I just remember just thinking to myself ‘I am going to play this next year’ and I played in 1997 when we won our first ever Minor Championship,” Ronan explained.

In the years leading up, the Moorefield community would also play a key role in enticing what is now a legendary figure at the club to stick around.

“Eric McDonnell was the manager of our minor team. He was brilliant and another example of that time in 1997 that drew me in. You would be walking up the street from school and Eric, who owned Neeson’s bar, would come out and slip you a fiver for lunch. You wouldn’t have had a penny so this was like Santa Claus to us. We really appreciated it and he was only doing it to keep you right and attached to the club. Eric and Tom (McDonnell), all the Murrays, Paul Morrissey and many others were all so important to us,” Ronan said.

Things would accelerate quickly for both Ronan and Moorefield as they collected several Minor and U21 Championships before lifting just their second ever Senior Football Championship in 2000. Moorefield won their first SFC title since 1962 with a 2-13 to 2-7 win over Kilcock in dire conditions.

“I remember talking to the guys on that ‘62 side, who were a brilliant team, and they were telling us in 2000 ‘don’t do what we did and leave it at one’. There wasn’t a massive history there. We had won the league in ‘94 and ‘96 and, while a league title might not mean not a whole lot these days, it was a massive thing for the club then. I remember the pictures of those teams in Neeson’s bar of Pat Flynn and Martin Murray,” Ronan said.

“Those great senior players showed us the ropes very quickly and didn’t let us get away with anything, or let anyone get above their station. They taught us how to work hard and that was the backbone of our philosophy over the years.”

After their 2000 Championship win in the first ever televised club game on TG4, Moorefield had got one in the bag and beaten defending champions Sarsfields on the way. The turn of the century would be a brilliant marker for perhaps the best rivalry in Kildare sport.

Between 2000 and 2024, one or both of the Newbridge clubs lined out on county final day on 19 occasions, sharing the honour on eight times, not including two replays.

“Even without finals, we always played each other on the way. In 2000 we played each other in a quarter-final and that was one of the first time’s in a long, long time that Moorefield had beaten Sarsfields and that gave us great confidence,” Ronan explained.

“It was a really great rivalry and we got the best out of each other. There was definitely a feeling that if they won it one year that it lit a fire under us for next year, and I know it was the same on their side.

“It was great for the town as well, it was a great place to be in the lead up to a county final with both team’s in it. Everybody was talking about it and had opinions on it. The war over the flags and there were contentious areas of what flags would go where. I was delighted to be part of it.”

The early exchanges of the legendary rivalry would create tension like no other. With that, the sporting spectacle suffered as not losing became somehow even more important in a county final. Sarsfields would win the 2001 Championship with a final win over The Moores and vice versa a year later.

“The 2001 final was a terrible game of football. Even the following year in 2002 when we won it was a terrible game, but there were a few crackers along the way,” Ronan recalled.

“I think in those early years when we were only coming, Sarsfields were probably thinking we need to put these lads back in their box. We were also probably still unsure of ourselves, but when it got up to around 2006/07, from there on I think the two teams just went for it. We were on a similar level and when we won Leinster they came back all guns blazing because we had that over them.”

Moorefield’s 2006 Leinster Championship was a triumph of will as the Kildare Champions edged their way through both the county and provincial competitions. When narrow victory followed narrow victory, The Moores were all but written off against Offaly champs Rhode.

Ronan explained, “Our manager at the time was Sos Dowling, who is the most determined man you’ll ever meet. His attributes were just drilled into us from his involvement with all those teams that came through. We were well aware of what was required and in those conditions we just fought and dived and tackled and never gave them a second.

“I watched it back recently and it is a pleasure to watch in terms of seeing a group of fellas fighting for every single ball. It was a real hard-working performance and they are the most satisfying ones.”

Moorefield’s Jason Phillips won his side two penalties against the wind, both of which were dispatched by Ronan himself. The Moores emerged from the wind and the rain as 3-6 to 0-8 winners to lift their first Leinster crown.

“I was listening to Roy Keane talking about how you need a bit of luck to win any Championship and it is so true. We were scraping over every game that year,” Ronan explained.

“On the flip side of that, we didn’t get any luck in the All-Ireland series. We drew with Dr Crokes with The Gooch playing and they were at full tilt that day. We had a chance to win it and clipped the post. If we had a bit of luck that day we could have won it, but it was a fantastic time and it really gave us unbelievable confidence. The following year in Kildare, we probably played our best football because of it. One year just ran into the next.”

Moorefield’s run from 2006 to 2014 was dominant as they claimed five Senior Championships in that time, four of which came in county final wins over Sarsfields. Unbelievably after such success to that point, the best was yet to come.

“When you are playing that long you think it's going to be over at different times. You get knocked out one year and you’re thinking ‘ah that’s the end of it’, but to come back in 2017 after that spell had ended was the most satisfying,” Ronan said.

“I got sent off in the county final in 2016 against Sarsfields, which was a real low-point. Then to come back in 2017, with Ross Glavin managing us, and to go on and win a Leinster title the way we did was amazing. I was 37 years-old and I thought that I might not get another chance at a county final after ‘16, but to then go on and win another two and a Leinster was incredible.”

Trailing by five points as the clock hit the hour mark against Westmeath champions St Loman’s, few would have fancied Moorefield for provincial glory in the 2017 Leinster final. A goal from Ronan Sweeney in the 61st minute re-ignited spirits before two quick-fire points brought them level.

In the dying embers, Moorefield’s Eanna O’Connor, son of Kerry boss Jack, stood over a free. O’Connor’s effort looked set to bring about extra-time before the fist of Ronan Sweeney kept it in play. The ball broke to Kevin Murnaghan, who knocked over the winning score deep into injury-time.

Ronan said, “You would never be able to come back from a deficit like that again, but it goes back to that belief and never-say-die attitude. We just really believed we could win the bloody thing, even though we were so far behind.

“We had great players and so many great leaders. You could throw out nearly any name from those times and they were all top class fellas that you would just love to go to war with. Not to mention all the brilliant managers we had over the years too. We were blessed.”

Ronan Sweeney retired in 2019 following a ruptured cruciate ligament and further knee damage in a losing county final versus Sarsfields. The playing days were over, but he was going nowhere and a week later he took the Moorefield senior management position.

He added, “From that time in 1997, when I first felt that sense of community, I have just engrossed myself in the place and the people in the club, I love it. I will never be able to repay the Moorefield club and the people in it for what they did for me.

“They gave me the opportunity to experience what I have experienced. I will never stop paying that back. I will be doing that until the day I die.”