His mammy first pulled on the Galway jersey just before her teens and went on to wear it with distinction at county senior level for twelve seasons, but little Rían Roche wasn’t prepared to wait even a day before donning the maroon.

And – thanks to a clever marketing ploy from team sponsors Supermac’s – the son of former Galway ladies captain Tracey Leonard and her husband Mike Roche made his ‘debut’ within hours of his birth last weekend.

The fast-food chain came up with ‘My First Galway Jersey’ promotion to celebrate every baby born in Galway on the day of the Connacht and Leinster finals, by gifting them their very first Galway jersey.

Tracey wasn’t due until today (Thursday) but she joked this week that, when Galway LGFA Secretary Geraldine Heverin told her of the Supermac’s promotion, she promised to try and speed the process along!

As it turned out, 6lb 13oz Rían decided to arrive even earlier, and Tracey returned to her room in the maternity ward at UHG – the same hospital where she works as a nurse – to find a Supermac’s bag in her room.

“I thought someone else must have left it there by accident, but the nurse said it was for me because of the years with Galway and all that. So he had the jersey on him as soon as he came back to the room,” she said.

Caption: First jersey…Rían Roche, just hours after his arrival!

Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.