GALWAY'S MAN OF ARAN

WHEN the Aran Islands lads came looking for him, Stephen Joyce had a fair idea of what he was getting into.

- Karl O'KANE

Maybe not the queasy stomach from the boat trips across for matches on Inishmore or Inisheer, but the type of player he would be working with.

One of them was Seán Mulkerrin, who would go on to be the first Aran Islander to line out at senior level for Galway, and a player Joyce had managed at the minor grade for the county.

Joyce a selector on John O'Mahony's Galway All-Ireland winning sides in 1998 and 2001 recalls the buildup to the All-Ireland minor final with Kerry back in 2016.

"I wasn't surprised at all that Seán would have gone on to play senior," he says. "He was only 17 in 2016 the minor grade was under-19 back then - for the All-Ireland final and actually his job was to mark David Clifford.

"Now, the bigger the challenge the more Seán liked it. When it came to playing Kerry it was 'That's great. I'll take Clifford.' That was Seán. Seán wasn't shying away from anything.

"He had a good game on him. Now Clifford got a great goal towards the end but he had drifted out the field at the time and he wasn't being picked up by Seán."

Mulkerrin has that chiseled look of an athlete, a little like he's hewn from the rocks of the islands he emerged from.

"He is wirey," says Joyce. "He would be strong. He's always keen to learn and listen and try and do the best for the team."

Maybe Mulkerrin was always destined for the big stage.

At nine years of age, and alongside his two older brothers Pádraig and Éamonn, they won 'the All-Ireland Talent Show' on TG4, landing a first prize of €50,000.