But somewhere in that struggle, something hardened, and now a year later, a 21-year-old captain is steering the ship through one of the club’s most electrifying starts to an Energia All-Ireland League campaign.
For Dylan Keane, this resurgence is more than form. It is a testament to loyalty, belief, and the power of a group that refused to let itself fracture.
That shift did not arrive through luck or a sudden injection of star talent. It came from within, from a squad that discovered its identity in the weeks when winning seemed like something that happened to other teams.
Keane speaks about those days with a mixture of honesty and pride, as if the scars are still fresh enough to feel but far enough away now to look back on with perspective.
There is no sugar coating what the first half of last season was for Galwegians – frustrating, painful, and relentlessly tight. To lose so many games by narrow margins tests not only a team’s ability but its character. Many sides crumble under that weight. This one did not.
“It’s a crazy turnaround from last season. I think a big part of it stems from the start of that last season,” Keane told IrishRugby.ie.
“I think as a group, we really stuck together and just kept each other’s backs when it would have been really easy to kind of throw the toys out of the pram almost and kind of pack in the whole system of everything we were kind of doing.
“To be fair we have a good core group of lads who have been there now for the last few years, and I think that’s what happened with the turnaround the last season was we just stuck together, kept going, and we knew once we got that first win, that more would come.
“I think that’s what really is keeping us going this year, especially. We finished last year getting into the play-offs when a lot of people would have written us off. That just gave us the confidence then going into this year to really just go for it.
“We got one or two lads as well to add a bit more depth to the team. A lot of the team is still that core group from the last couple of seasons. It’s been fantastic.”
It is not often that a club’s dark period plants the seeds for one of its brightest. Yet, in the way Keane describes that squad, it is clear that the seven-match losing streak in the first half of last season did not break them. It welded ‘Wegians together.
Those weeks were not defined by anger or blame but by an unspoken agreement that giving up was not an option. When the wins finally came, they came not as relief but as confirmation of something the group had known all along – they were better than their results.
What followed at the end of the season, a play-off place few saw coming, was not a fluke but a beginning. From that foundation has grown a start to this campaign that feels almost unbelievable on paper.
They have amassed eight wins from eight, all with a bonus point included, to sit 13 points clear at the top of the Division 2B table. Coached by Brendan Guilfoyle (pictured above), the Blues are scoring freely and shutting down opponents with ruthless focus.
At the helm of it all is a determined leader who has played with the club from the age of eight. A Galway boy born and bred into a club where he is now the youngest captain in Galwegians RFC history.
For Keane, the weight of the role never seems to sit awkwardly on his shoulders. He grew up with the Glenina-based club, literally and figuratively, and speaks about wearing the captaincy not with bravado but with something closer to gratitude.
“It was a massive honour for me, and my family, to be named captain this year. I grew up playing for Galwegians, love the club, love what it’s about, that small clubhouse, it’s just been a massive part of my life growing up.
“When you look at some of the names that have captained the team before me, some of them legends on the board of captains. You’ve Barry Gavin there, Eric Elwood, Mervyn Murphy, just legends of the game.”
The list he is referring to is a who’s who of Galwegian rugby heritage, the previous captains’ names etched into club lore. That he is now on the board alongside them speaks not only to his ability but to the trust placed in him by the coaching staff and his team-mates.
“Just to be on the same list as them has been surreal, and thank God for the lads that are there. We still have Jack Winters (pictured above), who has done a great job with us the last couple of years as captain, getting us up from (Division) 2C and getting us to the promotion play-offs last year as well.
“He’s still playing with us. It’s just been such an easy almost transition coming into it. There’s never anyone too far away that you can’t ask for a bit of advice or just maybe might look to when you’re unsure about something.”
This is one of the things that defines Keane. He sees leadership as something shared, as something that survives best when spread across many shoulders rather than carried alone.
He does not claim to have all the answers, nor does he pretend that age automatically qualifies or disqualifies someone from authority. What he does have is an understanding of the environment he came from, the people who shaped him, and the culture he wants to uphold.
It’s just a massive honour, like, coming up there and getting to represent the club on a Saturday. Just playing is one thing and then getting to represent it as captain is another.
“I’ve just been just so lucky that the lads have put that faith in me. A lot of people would have looked at it and said maybe give me another few years, but the lads really, really backed me.
“Brendan Guilfoyle, Shane O’Brien, and Jarrad Butler, they’ve all really put a lot of faith into me over the last few years. It’s definitely given me the confidence to kind of almost back myself and become a better player.
“It’s been great. When you have so many people from the club who coach you from a young age and help you through it to almost represent them in a way, by getting to this level, it has been rewarding as well.”
Part of what has made the transition seamless is the presence of his vice-captain, Andrew Sherlock, a friend since childhood and a team-mate at every step from underage to senior rugby.
Their connection is one born not of convenience but of years of shared effort, setbacks, triumphs, and understanding. They are the kind of pairing (pictured below in their younger days) that can make decisions with a glance rather than a discussion.
“It was a really nice touch as well, just getting to have Andrew by my side now as vice-captain,” admitted Keane. who has started seven of their eight league games this season, scoring two tries.
“We played together all the way up, so we know each other for years, and he’s so easy to turn to. He has loads of great experience as well.
“It makes them decisions that bit easier, if we have to go to the corner or take points, to be able to turn around to him. He is very straightforward and there’s no kind of back and forth.”
That relationship reflects something larger about this Galwegians side, the sense of continuity running through it. Keane often returns to the idea of a ‘core group’, and it is clear he sees that group not as an abstract concept but as the battery powering their resurgence.
“It’s been a tight-knit group of lads for the last couple of years. We had a few additions here and there and a few lads coming and going. There is definitely a core group there.
“That’s what I would definitely put it down to is that group sticking together and just pushing one another and really having a look at ourselves at the back of last season and saying we can really do something this season.
“So, we put the work in during pre-season and I feel like it’s shown definitely now from the start of this season. It’s been great.”
If the togetherness kept Galwegians alive last year, the discipline is what is driving them this year. Their excellent unbeaten run has not changed the messaging inside the dressing room or the weekly routines. Success has only heightened the importance of staying rooted.
“We’re just going to keep taking it one week at a time. Not get too ahead of ourselves. Just keep prepping the way we’re prepping and keep doing things the way we’re doing it.
“Just trust the process sort of thing, and just really not get ahead of ourselves. Just hopefully close out this last game now (on Saturday) and finish on a high before the Christmas break.”
The phrase ‘trust the process’ is overused in modern sport, but Keane, who is in the third year of his electrical apprenticeship, is speaking from a place where that trust was genuinely tested.
When the process kept failing to produce results, this group stayed with it. Now that the winning performances are coming, sticking to that same process feels like an anchor rather than a restriction.
“The momentum that we’re building has been so good, but we’re just taking this one week at a time. Getting our previews right and making sure the bodies and heads are in the right kind of areas for the weekends.
“I think it just comes from the ‘buying in’ as well from the lads, it’s just been unreal this year. The momentum now, hopefully we keep it going, hopefully pick up another win this weekend and just finish the Christmas out strong.”
Keane grew up in Ballinfoile Park on the Headford Road. His rugby came through Galwegians, and also during his time at The Bish, where the tradition was as strong as Crowley Park.
He did not get the Leaving Cert year he expected because Covid-19 wiped it out, but he carries the pride of being a Bish man into senior rugby today.
All of those threads, the neighbourhood, the school, the underage years at Galwegians, give him a sense of belonging that radiates through his words. This is not a captain parachuted in or a talent harvested from elsewhere. This is a club man captaining his club.
Galwegians’ resurgence in the first half of this season is a story about staying put, staying loyal, staying together. The long winter evenings last season, the tight tussles that slipped away.
The hours spent replaying video footage of those games, the silent frustration. All of it makes their current winning streak feel earned rather than surprising.
The season still has a long road ahead. The margin of error is slim, the league unforgiving, and Keane is keenly aware of that. But there is a feeling around Crowley Park this year that goes beyond statistics or form.
It feels like a club rediscovering its heartbeat. It feels like a squad playing with clarity and connection. It feels like a captain leading not because he has been told to, but because his fellow players know he is the one to follow.
They are not looking too far ahead just yet. Their final outing before Christmas is against Skerries at Crowley Park, a team with its own sting and history against Galwegians. The return trip in January will kick off a big second half of the season.
They may have developed a sizeable lead at the summit, but Keane has no interest in allowing comfort to seep into their preparations. They are hell-bent on keeping hold of this momentum and turning last April’s heartbreaking conclusion into a fairytale ending to this season.
“Skerries are definitely a tough side. Playing them last year, they beat us at home so you can’t take anything for granted. You need to show up with the same attitude,” he insisted.
“They are tough. They will have something to prove now coming down to us. They’ll be looking to get a bit of momentum themselves. It’ll be a great game, I think.
“Hopefully conditions stay a little dry for us, probably unlikely in ‘Wegians! But it should be a great cracker of a game and the return fixture will be tough as well going up there.
“Skerries have such a good home crowd with them, a loud home crowd, so they’re always a tough side to go away to as well.
“We kind of look at us now as we’re top of the table, we have a bit of a target on our back. Everyone will be gunning for us so we can’t take anything for granted. There’s no off weeks, there’s no easy games.
“We’ve got to keep pushing through if we want to do what we want to do for the season and try and win the league and get promoted. We really can’t take anything for granted.
“But no, I’m really looking forward to getting into the second half of the season and just trying to keep that momentum going with us and keep pushing us through into the new year.”
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