Smullen focuses on Longford football

For several years Trevor Smullen managed to juggle his dual sporting careers in basketball and Gaelic football, but then decided that a new season meant a new commitment. One of them must go for the other to truly shine.

It was a hard choice, and a bit of a gamble too, but Longford football had won his heart. And within a few short months there are signs he has chosen wisely.

Smullen has already helped his club Ballymahon win their first Longford county title, and on Sunday he'll try to help the county overcome Kildare and win the O'Byrne Cup title. More significantly, however, is his new-found confidence in Longford's chances of league promotion, and also doing themselves justice in the championship - at last.

"I'd been equally drawn to both sports from an early age," he says, "and although I never prioritised either one, I knew as well somewhere down the road I would have to decide where to concentrate.

"And there's no doubt both sports have seen a huge increase in the amount of training time over the last few years. One sport on its own was a big commitment, but it became very difficult to do justice to the two. There were a lot of clashes as well as it often meant letting one group down, so I decided this year I'd give football the full crack.

"I still enjoy the basketball a lot, and miss it a lot, but it's not like it was a couple of years ago in college when you could afford a little more time in bed on a Monday morning."

Smullen has long been a part of the Longford senior team, having made his championship debut in 1996, but during that time he found time for basketball. He started his Superleague club career with Notre Dame in Dublin, then played with Star of the Sea while studying in Belfast, and played with UCD Marian last season.

Since taking up his teaching post at St Tiernan's in Dublin, where he also heads the GAA coaching, Smullen found himself under increasing pressure to concentrate on one sport. Yet his basketball skills are far from idle.

He reckons many of the skills are transferable from basketball to Gaelic football, especially some of the hand movements, which are particularly useful in his new role acting as a third midfielder.

"I suppose the GAA would be a bit more aggressive," he says, "but you can definitely use some of the ball-handling skills. One of my goals against Wexford last weekend was fisted and the lads were giving me some stick, and saying there's no way I would have done that without the basketball skills."

Longford's run to the O'Byrne Cup final has caught the team by surprise, and Smullen admits the wins over Laois, Meath and Wexford were a little scrappy.

"I can tell you when we started out we weren't putting much focus on it at all. Most of the work at training has been geared towards the league, because we definitely want to get that promotion spot from Division 2B. Of course now that we're in the final it would be very nice to win it."

The game will also act as a dress rehearsal of sorts for May 25th, when Longford also play Kildare in the first round of the Leinster championship.

"I honestly feel both Kildare and ourselves are very close to our regular 15 players right now, and I don't think you'll see greatly changed teams when we meet again in May, expect of course in terms of fitness."

He feels too that last summer was desperately close to being the breakthrough season for Longford.

"We blew our big championship games. We threw it away in the first game against Louth (Louth won the replay) and against Derry in the qualifiers there was only one winner, until we blew that as well. We know we have messed up in the latter stages of those sort of games, and that is something we are trying to address."

But even if Longford do win on Sunday, don't expect the sort of celebrations that followed the similar feat of three years ago.

"We did go mad for a month after that," he says. "But that won't happen again, I'm at least sure of that."