Stephen Rochford plays down significance of historic football feat

Stephen Rochford will go down in the annals of AIB Club football history, the first All-Ireland winner as a player with one club and as a manager with another.

His playing exploits were on behalf of Crossmolina in 2001 and, despite crossing the border into enemy Galway territory, he has now delivered in equal measure with his adopted club.

Perhaps most impressive about Rochford’s achievement in Corofin is their unfulfilled potential before his arrival, coming up short in two All-Ireland semi-finals in recent years.

Yesterday, they were a side ready to finally deliver and repeat the success of 1997, watertight at the back and as smooth as butter in attack where they oozed quality. Rochford was rightfully proud though he downplayed his personal piece of history.

“To be honest, it’s something I was told about early in the week,” said Rochford of his entry to the history books. “It makes very little difference from the point of view of it being the first time ever. The main thing for me is, I’ve won it now as a manager and won it as a player, that’s fantastic. They’re two very separate emotions, two very satisfying things.

“As a player, you felt you had control within the 60 minutes. As a manager, you’ve got to relinquish that control maybe half an hour before the game and hope the guys go out and execute the agreed plan. Thankfully today, we did that.”

Winning in style was something that particularly pleased Rochford.

“It probably does on reflection, yeah,” he said. “We always try and play a fast brand of football, simply because the lads have that skill set within them. To be honest, the things that satisfy me the most are our ability to get back and work hard.

“In the modern game, half-back lines and midfields are driving forward. Whether you look at it being one team defensive or not, you’ve got to track and follow your man and our attitude to do that was super. I just felt we were right on the money.”

Kieran Fitzgerald, an All-Ireland winner with Galway in 2001, was Corofin full-back and part of a defence that conceded just seven points overall.

“Look, Kieran is the heartbeat of that group,” said Rochford. “The oldest man there, going all the way back with Galway in the early 2000s. There are a couple of different stories there, Ciaran McGrath with a double leg break two years and maybe never going to play football again.

“There are always stories like that in a club situation. I’m delighted for each and every one of them for the way they came out and played as they did.”

Slaughtneil are managed by Mickey Moran but he isn’t one for media duties. That task fell to selector John Joe Kearney who poured over the wreckage of their afternoon.

“I think we underperformed,” he admitted. “I didn’t think the occasion would get to the players. It looked a bit that way. Men that have starred for us in previous games, particularly our two half-backs, we just never attacked the way we had done on other days. I don’t know what was wrong there. Just all over the field there were problems.

“Corofin played more or less as we had seen from watching them before. To be honest, we thought we could curtail them a bit better than we did. We didn’t. There are no excuses.

“Once Corofin got into top gear we didn’t compete with them. All the breaks seemed to go their way.”