Ghost of Kilmeena doesn’t haunt Strokestown

I can still see the wooden crossbar at the scoreboard end of the Hyde shuddering in the cold winter rain.

I’ve often wondered, why do I do this to myself? Constantly, I’m thinking back to near misses or ones that got away on the football field, much more so than the good days. I’ve taken solace in recent years in the fact that it seems every athlete — even the most elite in the world — is the same.

It’s the tough moments that linger most in the mind.

Ask the Dubs who won six All-Irelands on the bounce, and they’ll tell you the defeat to Mayo in 2021 still haunts them. Or you’ll have heard Tommy Walsh, winner of how many Liam MacCarthys with Kilkenny, lament the defeat to Tipperary as they were going for five-in-a-row.

We love the highlights in sport, the moments of pure elation — they're what we’re always striving for. But it’s the low points which remain at the forefront of the mind, no matter how much we engage in sports psychology.

We won a county junior championship with St. Dominic’s in 2002 and did well in the Connacht championship. Back then, it was played on a round-robin basis. The champions in each of the five counties played each other with the top two contesting the final.

It meant we faced off with the Mayo winners in the Connacht junior club final in the Hyde at the backend of 2002. That’s the day the crossbar was shuddering. It was late on. We were two down and mounted a good move down the right flank.

I came onto the ball about 25 yards out and stepped inside a couple of tackles before I let rip. I caught it sweetly. I curse those damned timber crossbars. Had it been the round ones we have now, it would have crashed off the underside and into the net and we’d have been Connacht champions.

Instead, it rebounded out and that was that.

As soon as it ricocheted back, I saw that both Aidan Weir and Tom Gately had arrived at the back post looking for the handpass across for the easy goal. Was the pass on? I’m not sure but I was stubborn enough to tell the lads that it wasn’t. I hope they don’t read this.

Anyhow, the Mayo champions that year, who beat us in the final, were Kilmeena. The mention of them in the run-up to this year’s intermediate final put me on that trip back down memory lane.

Thinking back, I actually scored a super goal in the first half of that game, but, no, it’s the what-if that first comes to mind when I think of Kilmeena.

Thankfully, there’ll be no “what-ifs” related to Kilmeena for Strokestown. They gave a dominant display on Sunday and are worthy champions.

I watched on the Connacht GAA stream and was bemused beforehand at how the commentators (a Mayo pair) reckoned Kilmeena were strong favourites. The only basis for that which I could see was that they were the “home” team as it was played in MacHale Park, Castlebar.

Aside from that, this Strokestown team surely held the edge, no?

They’re stacked with lads who were senior champions in Roscommon just three years ago. Also, they’re very much improving with each game. Two prime examples of that come in the form of their best performers on Sunday — Colm Neary and Shane McGinley.

I thought Neary was immense throughout, and head and shoulders the best player on the pitch. He won kickouts, dispossessed opponents, blocked ball and carried. It was his carrying, in particular, which killed Kilmeena.

Every time Strokestown attacked, if they got it to Neary, he was sure to beat his man and create an overlap, which led to many easy scores for his team-mates. He topped it off with a brilliant run down the right wing and kickpass into the danger area which resulted in McGinley’s goal.

This extended club run for Strokestown is a God-send for Mark Dowd. The same can be said regarding St. Brigid’s journey. Specifically, there are at least three players who may well be very important for Roscommon in the coming years getting a run of games that they badly need.

The toll injuries take on players can often be understated. A lad might be out for three or four months and when he’s back we reckon that’s it — he’s fully back to himself.

But that’s rarely the case. With Ben O’Carroll, Colm Neary and Shane McGinley, for a variety of reasons, having played much less football than we’d have liked over the last 12 to 18 months, a run of games, especially games they’re winning, is needed to help them rediscover their sharpness.

We had seen only brief glimpses of quality from McGinley recently, but on Sunday he delivered his best performance in a long time. He’s probably a bit behind O’Carroll yet in terms of being fully back to speed, but he’s getting closer.

It was a really commanding showing by Strokestown overall. Okay, they only kicked one score more than Kilmeena, but they showed an ability to cut their opponents open at will and thus created a plethora of goal chances. They took four of them well. Some of their shooting choices for points were poor though, and that’s definitely a growth area for them to work on.

I thought Kevin Finn was very good. The way Strokestown play, the centre-forward is critical for them, and he was pivotal in terms of winning breaking ball and linking the play. Keith Murphy, Colin Compton and Dillon Casey also had big impacts too.

I thought Colin Hastings, at wing-back, was Kilmeena’s best player over the 60 minutes. Jack Carney would have had that accolade if he managed to stay on the pitch past half time. It’s fair for Kilmeena to wonder what might have been if they’d had their best player in the second half. Still, as good as he looked in the first half, it’s hard to see how he’d have had enough of an impact to alter the result of this game.

Strokestown were the superior team across the board on a famous day for the club. I wrote a few weeks ago about shortening the winter — Strokestown have done that for all their supporters.

Can St. Brigid’s do the same this Sunday? I expect so. Many commentators have this as a 50-50 match-up with Moycullen. I do think the Galway champs will offer a sterner test than Ballina. However, my gut instinct remains that St. Brigid’s biggest test in all of Connacht will have come from Pádraig Pearses.

If they bring their A game, they can win this with a bit to spare.