Brogan drug tested after All-Ireland win

DUBLIN attacking star Bernard Brogan has revealed he missed the majority of the immediate post-match celebrations of last September’s All-Ireland victory over Kerry as he was undergoing a compulsory drugs test at the time.

In TV3’s documentary Sam’s Town: Stories from the Dublin Dressing Room, to be broadcast next Thursday, Brogan insists he had no qualms with his celebrations being put on hold.

“I don’t remember much of those moments as I was actually getting drug tested straight after the game. So my celebrations were muted for 20 minutes or so until I got sorted and it was a different time for me. I was inside having to give my sample. I came back in here and a lot of the lads were gone so my buzz was a bit muted.

“We want to keep everybody clean. It’s an amateur game. We want lads to be at their best physically without any performance enhancing drugs. I got caught on a bad day, an All Ireland winning day. But it has to be done.”

Brogan also outlines how his memories of Dublin’s 1995 All-Ireland victory provided the inspiration from himself and older brother Alan to progress to the intercounty senior stage.

“My uncle Jim was involved as a selector and, after the game, Jim came out and brought us into the dressing room with the lads. That’s the moment I remember; the lads laughing and singing and throwing the Sam Maguire around and having the craic you know. It was a great moment and even the schools as well. I think Jason Sherlock and Keith Barr came to my school. It was a memory I’ll always have.

“I was 11 and I was coming to realise what it was all about. Seeing the cup come around the schools and the house and seeing the effect it had on the family and hearing the stories of the seventies. That’s kinda what drove me and Alan. He was a bit older, 13 or 14; he’d say it’s what drove him to be where he is today and it’s the same for myself.”

Meanwhile, also on the programme, midfielder Michael Dara MacAuley talks about how he was always confident Dublin could claim honours despite trailing for long stretches to Kerry in the second-half of the Croke Park clash.

“We had been down before in matches. It wasn’t the first time we were down. We actually had a training game the week before when the As played the Bs and it was a very similar situation.

“The As were down by four points. Bernard scored a goal in that training game and I can’t remember who scored the equalising point but we ended up drawing with the Bs. That was in the back of my head. We came back from this just seven days ago; we came back from the exact same thing so it was like ‘we can do it again’.”