St Brigid's Brian Stack: 'What won it was probably our start'

FINAL BOUND: Mark Daly, right, and Brian Stack of St Brigids after their side's victory in the Roscommon County Senior Club Football Championship final. Pic: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Brian Stack was 14 watching St Brigid’s contest and come up short in the 2011 All-Ireland club football final. He was a 16-year-old spectator when they went a step further and up the steps of the Hogan Stand in 2013.

Joint-captains Gearóid Cunniffe and Darragh Donnelly hoisting aloft the Andy Merrigan Cup crowned not only a glorious and historic season for Brigid's but a sustained period of dominance and authority for the Kiltoom club.

They were three-in-a-row Roscommon champions. They were the second club, after Roscommon neighbours Clann na nGael, to achieve a Connacht three-in-a-row. They were the first Roscommon club to claim the ultimate prize.

A teenage Brian Stack watched the silverware mount. He counted down the years until he was old enough to acquire senior membership. But beyond the odd Roscommon title, his time in the adult ranks bore little reflection to what he had grown up watching and wanting.

That was until the current season. A season that delivered a first county in three years and a first Connacht in 11. A season that will wrap up in Croker.

“Going up watching the games as a young lad, probably took it for granted at the time. Thought it was going to happen every year,” said the St Brigid’s full-back and 2023 All-Star nominee.

Chatting to his older brother, Ronan, following Sunday’s semi-final win over Castlehaven, the sole survivor from the 2013 All-Ireland winning team remarked that the panel’s younger members had to learn that there are “no shortcuts” to Croke Park.

That education has now been sat and served.

“When you’re younger, you have that young mentality where you think, ‘Oh, once I start playing, I’ll be playing in these big games’. But you soon realise that you have to work hard to get there, and it probably took us longer than people around the club would have wanted. But we’re there now and delighted,” continued the younger Stack.

“We’re kind of a young team, so we’re just getting older every year, getting more mature, learning from our mistakes in the years previous.

“We put a big emphasis on our fitness this year. Cian O’Dea, our S&C coach, did wonders with the club lads. Probably this time last year they started. I put it down to him. He deserves a lot of the credit.” 

What Stack put Sunday’s four-point win down to was rather simple and didn’t require any over analysis.

“What won it was probably our start. We got three points to no score at the start, and kind of kept that then throughout the game, right to the end.

“There’s an awful lot of pace in the forward line. We probably didn’t use it as much in the second half, but Castlehaven turned the game into a bit more of a battle, narrowed the spaces.” 

For Castlehaven captain Mark Collins, there was frustration that the one area they had really gone after in their preparations - a smart and swift start - was the one area that ultimately cost them.

Behind by 1-4 to 0-2 after 12 minutes and six behind after 17 minutes, Castlehaven were forced into an afternoon of hurried chasing. Whatever their intended approach was, it took a backseat to scoreboard firefighting.

“The disappointing thing is we really targeted it. We stayed up in the Horse and Jockey on Saturday night, and we talked a lot about getting a good start. And unfortunately, we didn’t come out of the blocks,” Collins lamented.

“To be fair to the lads, I don’t think we panicked. We’ve probably been in worse situations, and we were maybe the width of a crossbar away from winning it. Rory’s chance would have put us a point ahead at a vital stage when we had all the momentum.

“Sometimes you need that bit of luck. We probably got that in the Munster final, and maybe our luck just ran out today.” 

A difficult first half for the Haven rearguard wasn’t fully reflected in the interval scoreline of 1-7 to 0-6. White flags from Cathal Maguire and Brian Hurley in the final 80 seconds took the sting out of Brigids’ opening half body of work.

The same as manager James McCarthy’s sentiment that Castlehaven stood off their men in the first half, Collins noted how “we were maybe showing them a little bit too much respect”.

“We felt if we got the ball to our forwards, they were doing damage up front. We knew we weren’t out of it at half-time.

“It wasn’t for the want of trying… you could see lads tried their absolute heart out, and I think that’s what has really come out of the last 12 months for this team and club. There’s very exciting times ahead. The attitude and behaviour of players has been unbelievable.”