Ben out to stop the rot

Ben Brosnan knows he was spoilt.

In inter-county terms, he was the kid raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. Jason Ryan was in charge during his first year in Wexford and, though the work was hard, the living was easy. Oddly so, for a bunch of footballers from Wexford.

Within six months, the Waterford man winched them up to Division 2 of the league. By September they were looking back at a summer in which they hauled themselves up to unimagined heights.

A first Leinster senior football final in over half a century and a place in the All-Ireland semi-final to boot. Such riches.

Another Leinster final appearance was banked in 2012. He scored nine points against Dublin when only a measly goal separated them.

But the gold rush is no more. Wexford get their latest provincial championship campaign underway this weekend against a Longford side that saw off Offaly last month and expectations are as low as they were before their meteoric rise.

“I only said last year as I was getting asked about it that I had only really lost five or six games for Wexford in all my time, whereas someone like Red Barry might have lost 30 games before they even won one.

“I did come in at a good time. It is hard when you are used to getting to semi-finals and finals to now be sort of struggling against teams that two or three years ago we would have beaten easily.”

It’s not easy. Wexford have found it harder to attract footballers to the county colours than the Labour party has voters to its banner in recent times. A county that has always given its heart to the hurlers returned to its first love after a dalliance.

For Brosnan, the salad days are over.

“Personally, I didn’t have a great year last year so I have to do more than I was. We just have to keep working. It’s an easy thing to say but hopefully we can get a win [against Longford].”

It is a fixture that should inspire some optimism.

Wexford won the last time the pair met in the championship two years ago and a two-point win in the last round of the league this year allowed Aidan O’Brien’s side avoid relegation, sending Longford down instead.

A thin gruel, all the same, after the largesse of the recent past.