Brennan knows meaning of core values

Brendan O’Brien

Hairs are pulled, expletives turn the air blue and then the item is found in a jacket pocket or on the kitchen table. Under your nose all along.

Barry Brennan knows that mixture of frustration and ultimate sheepishness more than most. For 18 months he carried a back injury that foiled all his efforts at making it go away.

He reckons he's driven thousands of miles criss-crossing the country in that time, consulting medical experts to discover what had been keeping his career on hold since he first felt the pain in his lower back four weeks after Laois' All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Armagh in 2003.

"Frustration is the word you could use," he laughs amiably now. "I was going here, there and everywhere and nothing seemed to be working.

I'd be given something to do and I'd follow it to the letter and it wouldn't work.

"It was frustrating because for nearly two years people would constantly be asking you 'how's the injury' and it just didn't seem to be coming right."

A fitness instructor in the Seven Oaks hotel gym in Carlow Town, Brennan knew everything about keeping in shape but nothing about injuries.

With his options finally spent, he found himself turning to his colleague in the Seven Oaks, Ria Breen.

Joe Higgins and Brian McDonald had done part of their rehabilitation under her care and recommended Breen highly. Brennan decided he had nothing to lose and within weeks he was back training with the panel.

"It turned out to be a weakness in my core area around the back of my stomach," Brennan explains. "She put me on a programme and I've been working on that the last five months trying to build up my core area. I'd been all over the country and no-one had been able to pinpoint it, but Ria's after working wonders with it."

Under your nose all along? "Yeah," he laughs sheepishly.

On the one hand, he's just thankful that the nightmare is over. On the other, he can't help but look back at what might have been. Two years ago he came on as a sub in the Leinster final win over Kildare and kicked a point, and two weeks later he replaced Ross Munnelly against Armagh.

If that day didn't end the way he wanted, he still felt that he had arrived. His teens just behind him and with a provincial medal in his pocket, 2004 stretched out before him like putty waiting to be moulded.

"That's the thing. You're 20 years of age and you're playing in a Leinster final and you think it's going to be like that all the time. A year and a half down the line then and you're thinking 'jeez, is this going to work out for me?' You just have to take your opportunities when they come. Thankfully, Micko never shut the door on me. There was always the chance to come back in and prove myself."

Few expected that chance to come as soon as it did. Within weeks of rejoining the panel Brennan found himself thrust straight into the first 15 against Kildare and into the pivotal centre-forward spot as well.

There he was, 22 years of age, a guy who freely admits to suffering bouts of nerves before the most inconsequential club match, a man with a grand total of 46 championship minutes notched on his belt being asked to lead the forward line.

Time to sink or swim and by the game's end he had notched four points from play and helped orchestrate Laois' most fluent attacking performance in almost two years.

"I knew I was going well in training but it was going to take a brave kind of manager to throw me in. I knew if I kept the head down I'd as good a chance as anyone. That's the kind of manager Micko is, if you're going well you'll be put in.

"I was a bit apprehensive but from the first ball I got, it just went well for me and the team as a whole. It's easier when you have the likes of Ross (Munnelly) and Billy (Sheehan) doing well around you and the lads at the back doing so well too. The first ball I got went over, which is a big thing."

After everything he's had to endure, Sunday should be a special day for himyoung Brennan, selection permitting. Twenty years ago his Dad Willie filled the number eleven shirt the last time Laois met the Dubs in a Leinster final. Barry will hoping his own recollections of the day will prove to be happier than his old man's.

"It's a bit of a coincidence alright. Things didn't go too well for them that day. I don't remember anything of it obviously but from what everyone tells me they had all the footballers but things didn't happen for them. They hadn't that bit of luck or whatever. Hopefully we will."