Leinster or bust for Brosnan

It’s been a productive and encouraging few years for the Wexford footballers but such progress raises expectations and Ben Brosnan admitted it Jason Ryan’s men will be disappointed with anything less than a Leinster title.

“I suppose for the last few years we have been aiming to win the first championship match,” said the 24-year-old forward.

“We have been in two national [league] finals in recent years and we are aiming to win Leinster this year. That is our main goal — to win Leinster — and, no matter who is going to try and stop us, that is the main thing. We have Dublin hopefully in the semi-final after Laois or Longford and whoever then in the final.”

Brosnan’s declaration is a timely one as the championship approaches and a reminder to all those who view this year’s Leinster SFC as a warm-up to an inevitable final showdown between Dublin and Kildare.

Mickey Harte has already pinned Leinster as being the most competitive of the four provinces but, although standards have risen, only Kildare and Wexford hold realistic ambitions of bettering the reigning champions.

Last year was proof of that with Kildare falling by the narrowest of margins in the semi-final and Wexford denied in large part because of a once-in-a-millennium own goal.

Redmond Barry had just put Wexford in front when goalkeeper Anthony Masterson punched the ball against his defender Graeme Molloy and back into his own net. Their misery was compounded in the qualifiers against Limerick when a disputed point sent them packing.

“To be there and to have Dublin rattled the way that we did... looking around the pitch after we scored that goal you could see Dublin heads were dropping and then they got that lucky goal. It hasn’t happened in training since so I don’t know where it came from, but that’s sport,” said Brosnan.

“It was really disappointing and then the same against Limerick.”

But the future is bright in the county, with a number of underage players ready to make the step up, and Brosnan is hoping manager Ryan will be there to greet them and others like them for a decade or more to come.

Rumours that the Waterford man would be pinched by the Waterford hurlers came to nothing in the off-season and the Bannow/Ballymitty clubman described the manager’s decision to stay on as akin to having a new boss.

“I would say he would hate now if someone else came in and we won Leinster,” reasoned Brosnan.