'The harder you work, the luckier you get' - Preparation key to getting over the line for Branagan and Kilcoo 

THE BENCHMARK: Aaron Branagan of Kilcoo. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

An hour from retaining the AIB Ulster SFC crown, it's easy to forget that Kilcoo were only a penalty kick away from being stripped of their county, provincial and All-Ireland titles in September.

Not that Aaron Branagan, one of five brothers in the squad, was overly concerned when Clonduff were on the brink of a famous Down SFC quarter-final win.

With the game going to penalties, and then sudden death, and Kilcoo missing their first kick, all Clonduff had to do was score to go through. But Kilcoo 'keeper Niall Kane saved, Paul Devlin slotted the next one and then Kane saved again to somehow secure the semi-final spot.

"I know that it looked very tight," acknowledged Branagan. "But honestly, standing inside, I was there beside my brother Daryl as it was happening and Daryl says, 'We'll be grand'. And I thought, 'I'm not the only one here thinking that so'.

"I never say never. I always repeat that old saying, 'the harder you work, the luckier you get'. I believe that because we always work so hard, the amount of times there's been near misses, the amount of times people have said to me, 'They nearly beat you that time'. But you end up getting over the line."

They won the Down final after extra-time too before overcoming Ballybay and then beating Enniskillen Gaels to reach the provincial final.

Branagan has noticed the difference this season as All-Ireland title holders, in terms of the ferocity of their challengers.

"We're trying to find that motivation to be at our best for every single game because they're coming at us like it's the end of the world," said the defender.

Ultimately it's that high of winning that keeps him going and the memory of what it felt like beating Kilmacud Crokes in last February's All-Ireland decider.

"We were talking about babies and stuff like that," said Branagan, referencing a chat with his partner, Mairead, who gave birth to their son, Leo, six weeks before the All-Ireland win.

"I said that the feeling after the whistle blew, it's a feeling that you can never, ever, ever replicate. I said, 'You can have a few babies - you can't have a few All-Irelands!' It definitely was a feeling I had never felt before, when that final whistle went. It's an emotion that if you could bottle and sell it, it would be the most addictive drug in the world. For a month, I was six-feet tall, the happiest man in the world."

The bus journey home was epic.

"I wish that bus journey could have went on for hours and hours because it was untouched. It was just the lads that had played, just the lads that had trained."

There will be similar emotions again on Sunday if they beat a strong Glen side though Kilcoo required extra-time to see off the Derry men in last year's semi-final.

"I felt that we were really nervous going into that game, nervous about what the outcome would be and I think we probably got too caught up in all that side of things," said Branagan.