Glory beckons again for Brewster

FOUR years have passed but, if anything, the memory burns even brighter for Tom Brewster and the thousands of Fermanagh fans who looked on intoxicated by the drama in Croke Park that August afternoon.

Fermanagh had played the better football for most of that All-Ireland quarter-final but, as is their wont, Armagh were weathering the storm and entered the last 10 minutes a point ahead.

A trip to Australia the previous winter meant Brewster spent much of the summer on the bench but he was one of three reinforcements that Charlie Mulgrew turned to as his side kicked wide after crushing wide.

Brewster didn’t disappoint. His second point cancelled the lead McConville had given Armagh but his third is the kick that has dotted the dreams of half the county ever since.

One minute of the four extra allowed by John Bannon had passed with the scores still deadlocked when Brewster sent the ball through the posts from his launch pad out under the shadow of the Cusack Stand.

Tom smiles at the thought of that win against Armagh, how the green and white flood cascaded onto the pitch within minutes of his last score, but not for long. Greater glory is within their grasp in Clones on Sunday.

“It was nice and it was something that sticks in the mind. However, we have played Armagh five or six times since between Ulster and the back door and they’ve had the upper hand. There have been a few close battles, a few replays, and we lost by a point in 2001 but they definitely have the upper hand.”

Matching that memorable summer of 2004 was always going to be a tall order and so it proved. The nadir came in the spring of last year when a 17-point defeat to Dublin and a 12-point loss to Cork in the last two games rounded off a league campaign which yielded not a single point. Charlie Mulgrew’s three-year tenure had ended the previous winter and Malachy O’Rourke had stepped into the breach but it was hard to escape the feeling that the team had, had it’s day.

Admitted Brewster: “We struggled a bit in 2005 but I suppose we were always going to struggle trying to follow on from 2004.

“You couldn’t say that we’d turned into a terrible team. It was uncharacteristic of us losing like we did to Dublin and Cork. That aside, we were always punching at our weight in Division One.”

In Armagh, they face a side that revels in destroying the lofty dreams of others on Ulster final day but neither team will be springing any surprises on the other in Clones.

“A blind man would know how Armagh play and everyone knows how we play too. They have a game plan that pundits say may counteract our style and they showed against Down that they can really impose a game plan.

“You wouldn’t have come away from the semi-final thinking that Down have any pace in their full forward line but they do. It seemed to work well for Armagh and I thought they looked very impressive.”