The Electric Ireland Sigerson, Fitzgibbon and Higher Education Championships enjoy a truly iconic place on the GAA calendar because they provide a novel twist on a very familiar story. For a few formative years, gaelic footballers and hurlers from all across the country - who previously had only defined themselves by their club or county - must forge a new GAA identity. They become DCU players or Mary I players or UCC players.
Part of the power of the Electric Ireland Sigerson, Fitzgibbon and Higher Education Championships is how they ask players to rise above old enmities. Few GAA rivalries are as intense as that of Dublin and Meath. Well, Dublin's Paddy Christie and Meath's Anthony Moyles were forced to put intercounty bitterness aside and forge real bonds as teammates at DCU. In this brilliant video from Electric Ireland, the pair discuss how the competition changed them as footballers and men.
"That rivalry thing was great but we were well able to park it. Once you're playing for the college, you just had a job to do," Moyles said
Electric Ireland's #FirstClassRivals campaign has profiled those fascinating friendships that were made in spite of bitter rivalries. From the great IT Sligo team of the early noughties that featured many future Mayo and Donegal legends to the DCU team of 2012 that starred Michael Murphy and Paul Flynn, the Electric Ireland Sigerson, Fitzgibbon and Higher Education Championships build allegiances that transcend county borders.
The Electric Ireland Sigerson, Fitzgibbon and Higher Education Championships have made a brilliant start in 2018, and there are some truly mouthwatering semifinal fixtures to come next weekend. Keep an eye on Balls.ie over the next two weeks as the kings of Irish colleges are crowned in gaelic football and hurling for 2018.
The Electric Ireland Sigerson, Fitzgibbon and Higher Education Championships. Taking rivalries to the next level. #FirstClassRivals
