Croker with Two Mile House via the Banner

AIB ALL-IRELAND CLUB JFC FINAL:

Browne had been hanging around the fringes of Kieran McGeeney’s Kildare panel for a couple of years when he packed his bags for Asia. It was there that he bumped into Clare captain Gordon Kelly and corner-back Laurence Healy. The midfielder had seen some league action under McGeeney but never got off the bench come championship and Croke Park. So when he called time with Kildare it prompted his old travelling buddies to alert then Clare boss Micheal McDermott to his roots.

“My mother’s from Clare,” Browne explains. “She’d be the harshest critic at home, mad for Clare hurling and football. Ger Loughnane would be a deity. To get the opportunity was great.”

Browne loved his time with Clare but he was building a house in 2012 and working in Dublin city centre. The strain of all that and the commute to UL for training soon took its toll and he left after two seasons with fond memories and a bunch of niggly injuries.

There was more. The club needed his attention.

Two Mile House had been banging their heads on the roof of the Junior Championship for too long. They lost four finals and two semis in the six years before Straffan were defeated in last year’s decider. “It was starting to take it’s toll. So when we did win it, we didn’t celebrate, we were just so relieved We thought ‘that’s that, we’ll rest up for the winter and go for the intermediate’.”

Manager Jarlath Gilroy had other ideas and, though the players didn’t share his enthusiasm, they eventually bought into a provincial campaign that offered them games on pristine county pitches in front of big crowds.

They won the Leinster final against Louth’s Hunterstown Rovers in front of a huge turnout in Newbridge and they now find themselves in the “surreal” position of being the first Kildare club to make an All-Ireland final.

“I couldn’t believe that. Kildare has a fairly decent tradition and have won Leinster club titles. To be the first would be super, yeah.”

Browne only learned of their achievement after the defeat of Monaghan’s Emyvale in the semi-final, a game won without inter-county star Peter Kelly who also misses tomorrow’s final against Roscommon’s Fuerty. But they are not short of star wattage with three of the club’s four representatives on Kildare’s 2013 Leinster minor-winning side playing key roles. For them, and Browne, Croker calls again.