Family ties won’t distractus, says O’Brien

St Brigid’s manager Noel O’Brien jokingly fears one of his players might pass the ball to a Garrycastle player on Saturday. Such is the geographical proximity and strength of family ties between the teams, Athlone and Kiltoom has been consumed with the build-up to the clubs’ All-Ireland SFC semi-final for weeks.

But O’Brien is attempting to ensure the Connacht champions treat the game as more than a local derby.

“What we are doing is not mentioning the team we are going to play. We are keeping our feet planted firmly on the ground,” he said.

“As far as we are concerned, Garrycastle is 100 miles away from us. We have to get our own game plan right. We can then look at Garrycastle for weaknesses and I don’t think they have a hell of a lot, to be honest.

“They have come out of Leinster, they have to be a good team. We have massive respect for them.”

Last year’s All-Ireland runners-up, O’Brien said the defeat to Crossmaglen took months to recover from.

“I have been around a lot and been in quite a few county finals in my time. To lose a county final you feel it for a couple of weeks. But when you lose an All-Ireland final it is like a death in the family.

“It takes so much physically out of you. It drains you for months. We played league matches after with just two or three of our senior panel involved and brought in a rake of young lads and gave them a chance.

“We had to give them a break to get back into it. It did take maybe three to four months to wash it out of our system.”

O’Brien highlighted the criticism received by the club during the Connacht championship but feels his team are coming to the boil in good time.

“People were saying we are not playing as well and (they) were right to a point. But we got through and had a bit of luck maybe against Corofin.

“We went to London [All-Ireland club quarter-final v Fulham Irish] but we have always been able to step it up a gear when we had to.

“We have been doing different exercises and yoga and that type of thing. When you are in the game as long as I am you can sense and feel when guys are coming right at the right time. I feel that we are getting there.”