St. Brigid's steal a march on chasing pack
St. Brigid's forward, Bobby Nugent, celebrates his side's recent Connacht club senior football championship success against Corofin at Dr. Hyde Park. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie
Heady times for their supporters, but it’ll be a lean and well-behaved Christmas for the players of St. Brigid’s and Castlerea St. Kevin’s, both of whom have huge All-Ireland semi-final fixtures looming large on the horizon early in the New Year.
Regardless of what happens in those games, St. Brigid’s ranking will be unaffected, though it’s possible that if Castlerea can succeed where St. Faithleach’s, Michael Glaveys and St. Croan’s all failed in the last ten years and add an All-Ireland title to their Connacht silverware, then they would be fully entitled to jump up another few slots in this year’s end-of-season power rankings.
As always, the assessment is based exclusively on each club’s first team, and heavily weighted towards 2023 performances — though where those performances are way out of kilter with what preceded it in the last year or two, that too is considered.
So players, managers and supporters all around the county, let the debate begin…
At the start of the year, St. Brigid’s were towards the front end of a pack of around six or eight clubs that were entitled to consider the Fahey Cup to be within their reach, but the idea that their last game of the year would be a comprehensive win over Corofin in a Connacht final would have seemed fanciful.
They made it to the semi-finals without a scratch on them so even then, it was hard to know just how good they were, in the absence of an intense championship battle to stress test their fibres. However, things were falling into place very nicely, and, in hindsight, perhaps more should have been made of their incredible conditioning during those first four championship games, as this was what made potentially tough tests look very simple indeed.
The intermediates started slowly but gathered momentum, the U-20s pulled off a memorable championship win, and all of a sudden impact players were emerging and there was real depth in the club, comparable to a decade ago.
When they ran over Roscommon Gaels in the semi-final, there was no doubt that this new generation had finally emerged and was ready to deliver on their potential. We’ll find out next month just how high the ceiling goes.
The long-term outlook is not ideal for Boyle, as underage results are underwhelming. They won one championship game at each of the three underage grades this year, all at Division Two or Three level, so this only heightens the sense that this team need to win, now.
They couldn’t have done much more to make that happen in 2023. Their championship opener against Roscommon Gaels was a surreal nightmare, but since then they were outstanding defensively, even with Conor Flanagan and Evan McGrath out all year, while Seán Purcell’s injury depleted their shallow pool of reserves even more.
All of that, not to mention the mental trauma of the 2022 final, was overcome. Step by step, Cian Smith’s side put together a very rounded campaign that saw them win games in very different ways, most impressively when they put their Pearses hoodoo to bed. Their final performance couldn’t really be faulted either, as it was simply a case of two outstanding sides locking horns over an hour in which the skills, tactics and physicality were right out of the top drawer.
More than anyone else north of Carnagh, they’ll want St. Brigid’s to win the All-Ireland this year. A narrow defeat for the champions might only drive the Kiltoom-based club onto new heights, whereas it would be much tougher for All-Ireland champions to match the ravenous desire they will feel around the Abbey Park.
The absence of silverware at all levels above U-14 will make 2023 feel like a failure in Woodmount, though a lot of clubs could only dream of a season like Pearses just had.
Their U-20s were the clear championship favourites and just got beaten by a superb St. Brigid’s performance, their intermediates defied all expectations and looked to have Castlerea dead and buried, and then at senior level they were within a kick of a ball of both St. Brigid’s and Boyle, and that was with so many of their proven, established stars just not getting to the high standards that they would expect.
Their 2024 season will hinge on whether or not those more senior players turn a corner, or whether it’s simply a case of miles on the clock beginning to tell a tale. Certainly, if we see Conor Daly, Niall Daly, David Murray and Paul Carey at their best and the likes of Caelim Keogh, Declan Kenny, Eoin Colleran and Jack Tumulty continue on their current trajectory, they will be as formidable as at any stage in the last five years.
The O’Rourke Cup gave them hope, and when the championship started with that sensational opening 30 minutes in Boyle, Roscommon Gaels looked like real contenders.
It was all downhill from there, however, and while a first senior trophy in almost 20 years (the O’Rourke Cup) still represents a positive step, it feels like there’s some cleaning up to do on a lot of other fronts before their excellent minor team from this year will have the right environment in which to thrive.
The debacle surrounding their U-20s this year will rankle with some of the players and families involved, while the club’s failure to be much more competitive at junior level is baffling, given the sheer number of good players that pull on purple and gold jerseys every year.
Most importantly, how St. Brigid’s demolished them in this year’s semi-final means that there will be some existential questions asked around Lisnamult. Even allowing for a superb St. Brigid’s display that day, the Gaels’ resistance (Scott Oates and Senan Lambe excepted) was meek, at best.
They rank fourth because, between league and championship, they were the best of the chasing pack. But the gap between the Gaels and the top three is probably bigger than the gap between them and the first couple of sides outside the top ten — at least right now.
From May through to July, Clann won five out of six games in the league, and their only defeat was a narrow reverse against St. Brigid’s. They opened the championship with what looked like a very encouraging performance against Strokestown, kicking on in the second half, and at all stages they looked to have a very balanced team with some very promising young talent, particularly Josh Lennon and Fearghus Lennon in the two corners.
Marching into the knockout stages on the back of a seven-point win over a decent Oran team, their quarter-final clash with Boyle looked like the tie of the round between two obvious championship contenders.
Instead, goals kept the margin close in that quarter-final but there was no doubting who was the more impressive side on the day, so to exit the championship so meekly must have been bitterly disappointing.
In terms of team balance, defensive structure, panel depth and a nice mix of experience and youth, Clann tick a lot of boxes — but relative to the top three at least, the little bit of stardust is lacking. Ultan Harney wouldn’t usually be described in those terms but he certainly will be a massive boost to the cause around Johnstown as he would be a match for any player in Roscommon when fully fit and primed.
But they’ll need more than that.
There’s no dancing around it any more. Knockout football is just not working for Oran, and it’s past the point where we can say that it will become a problem if they don’t get over that hump. It is a problem, and a massive one, right now.
On a lot of levels, it looks like things are very similar to how they were at the end of 2022. Oran have a solid panel with a young age profile, they have a couple of weak spots, but they look upwardly mobile. However clubs like Brigid’s and Boyle are raising the bar, and while those well-known young players in Rockfield are playing well, only Ciarán Lawless and Colin Walsh looked like county standard players consistently throughout this championship.
Shane Regan was a good find in goals and Mike Staunton is the type of midfielder that is such a rarity on the Roscommon club scene — a powerful, dominant aerial presence that can win his own ball and make pushing up on the Oran kickout a risky game for any opponent. But they need more, particularly when it comes to pace in the full-back line, and a goal threat. Even in a successful league campaign, the warning signs were there as they failed to raise a green flag in seven out of 12 matches.
Fast forward to the afternoon of September 24th, and they had just been eliminated from the championship, after scoring one goal in over four hours of football. On raw ability, they would be fourth on this list, but they’re making a habit of losing when it matters most.
This might seem like a lofty enough ranking for a club that got relegated back down to the O’Gara Cup and scraped one narrow win in three championship games, but we’re making allowance here for the amount of patchwork and repair that Tomás Gilleran and his selectors had to get through to put a serviceable team on the field.
Even so, they almost pulled off the shock of the summer in what was effectively a straight knockout tie against Pádraig Pearses.
Now to be clear, if the side that lost to Dunmore in the 2022 Connacht final had been available, it’s far from certain that they would have won that game. After all, what happened on that September afternoon in Woodmount was something of an ambush, and if a full strength St. Dominic’s side arrived on the Galway border that day, then the home side would have been much warier of the threat.
Nonetheless, there are some very impressive players in the panel, and while they have a huge task on their hands trying to find a replacement for Gilleran, who knows his native club and the Roscommon football scene inside out, it’s one of the more appealing management roles out there, because there is real scope for progression.
Relegation back to the O’Gara Cup is a concern, however. That 2-5 to 0-10 defeat to St. Faithleach’s all the way back in March proved to be hugely consequential, as did their one-point defeat to Fuerty in the final round of games.
The Ballyleague men went through a dreadful slump in May and June and needed other results to go their way to salvage their Division One status by the skin of their teeth, so even allowing for the transformation that was likely when the Murtagh brothers came back into the fold, their strong showing in the championship came absolutely out of the blue.
After kicking things off with an excellent win over Western Gaels, they got no luck whatsoever in their clashes with Boyle and Roscommon Gaels. They lost to the former when Daire Cregg was blessed to escape without a red card and St. Faithleach’s still had a final possession and a chance to equalise, then fell to the latter on the back of a Rory Carthy penalty deep in stoppage time.
The defensive issues of 2022 were addressed very well, so Adrian Donoghue and his management team can take a lot of credit for that, but there is a real storm coming down the tracks that is going to batter them on two fronts.
In a five-year period, starting in a couple of years, this current senior panel will start to lose a lot of high-level footballers to retirement. Meanwhile, they are struggling to put teams on the field at U-16, U-14 and U-12, and those players that are lining out are finding it very difficult to put wins on the board.
St. Faithleach’s aren’t one of the first clubs in Roscommon that comes to mind when the topic of demographics comes up, but their window to do something meaningful at senior level is closing fast.
They didn’t get the top spot last year despite finishing the year with the big prize, and by the same line of thinking, we won’t push them out of the top ten just because they got relegated either. Other clubs lost a greater number of players between the last two seasons, but no first team was hammered with quite as many significant losses.
However, even allowing for the huge dip in quality that resulted from the absence of players like Cathal Compton, Seán Mullooly, Paddy Brogan and Colm Neary, they still could easily have won any of their games against Tulsk, Glaveys and Western Gaels.
Against Glaveys in particular, they let a very good position slip, and as was the case all year, much of the blame lies with the forward division, where Diarmuid McGann and Colin Compton were a shadow of themselves all year long, albeit with injury a big factor in McGann’s case.
The accepted narrative now is that the intermediate championship is theirs for the taking in 2024 and things may play out that way, but that’s absolutely not a certainty either, particularly in the likely event that most of those absentees stay away.
There were definitely signs of hope in their junior team though, and the new management will look to players like Adam Tighe, Andrew Jordan and Jack Beirne to step up and make a real impact in the O’Rourke Cup, and then to go from there.
There was honour and dignity in the way they took on an in-form Boyle team in the final round of group games and kept battling despite the fact that Donie Smith and Cian McKeon were clearly in sensational form, while the spirit and character they showed against Roscommon Gaels and Strokestown ultimately secured their senior status for another year.
Add in six wins in the O’Rourke Cup — and out of their four defeats, only their home loss to Tulsk back in March was a real underperformance — and 2023 represents a solid body of work for the Frenchpark-based club.
The route to meaningful improvement from here is hard to identify however. They hit the crossbar in the U-20 Division Three championship final and went into the final round of minor games with the possibility of making a Division Two semi-final on the table, but at senior level they continue to be hugely dependent on a handful of older players that are in outstanding physical condition, given their experience and mileage.
Unquestionably the toughest team to assess, in the context of the half a dozen clubs around them.
They’re on the back of winning five tight knockout games in a row, and while their resolve, fitness and focus in making that happen is utterly commendable, we can’t forget either that but for a David Farrell penalty save in the county quarter-final against St. Brigid’s second team, they might have exited the championship at that stage in proceedings. If that happened, they could easily have stayed at 18!
As a whole, however, the club is in great shape, with some tremendous people involved who are making good things happen on and off the pitch. Underage was a black hole for a long time, but that’s been resolved very well and this year’s minors and U-16s were very impressive. Their facilities are excellent, there is a good culture of participation in the club right now and there is a feeling that they are at the start of a journey back to real relevance on the Roscommon club football scene.
It's also true to say that 2024 is likely to be difficult. Regardless of whether this season’s odyssey ends at the start of January or towards the end of the month, players will be exhausted and will need downtime.
Manager Dara Bruen has spoken about the importance of the O’Rourke Cup, but between fatigue and a much bigger draw on their panel from the county seniors, it won’t be easy to afford the competition that level of weight.
However, that’s all a matter for the future. For now, a glorious opportunity awaits.
This ranking may feel harsh, since Strokestown and St. Dominic’s were both given credit for losing key players this year, and Michael Glaveys were also afflicted on that front.
Certainly when Dylan Ruane and Andy Glennon came back into the side, they were a very different team to the outfit that started out with a painful defeat in Knockcroghery and then got blitzed in the first half of their match against Pearses.
It wouldn’t take a lot for them to jump up three or four slots on this list. However, it does feel harder to give Michael Glaveys credit for missing players since we’ve been saying that for several years now. Getting their best team on the field seems to be a particularly tough challenge in Ballinlough, and there simply isn’t the depth there to thrive without getting that crucial first step right.
A very tidy crop of minor footballers is about to join the club’s adult ranks, and they need to feel that they aren’t going from being very competitive at minor level to simply treading water with their adult team. It would be a good time for the club to make a big push, even if ambitions of reaching a county final are probably a bit out of reach.
Theirs was a gruelling league campaign that featured a handful of heavy defeats, and when they walked into their own dressing room after being well-beaten by Clann in the second round of the championship, things didn’t look good.
Yet they turned things around to record a momentous victory over Strokestown in Ballyforan, and in the world of the GAA where a local derby win in a big game can mean as much as a trophy, that one result put a very different spin on their season.
The juniors also dodged relegation against the odds, and with Tadhg O’Rourke set to return to action this year, there are some signs of promise for the year ahead. Is winning two games and reaching a quarter-final realistic however?
Barring an incredibly kind draw, it’s hard to see it.
Even allowing for the comparatively high number of county senior and U-20 players in the Éire Óg panel, relative to other O’Gara Cup sides, the league campaign offered no evidence that Pat Doory’s troops would be ready to hit the ground running in the championship. Yet that was exactly what they did, dominating St. Brigid’s in a performance where Brian Greene announced his presence on the adult football scene in style.
They didn’t lose a step from there either, and good wins over St. Croan’s and Elphin — both genuine championship contenders — cemented their status as warm favourites for the county final.
For 45 minutes of that final, they did everything right too, but the last 15 was enough to undo a year’s good work.
Oran and St. Dominic’s can both testify as to how it doesn’t matter how strong you might be on paper, getting out of the intermediate championship is not easy, and it often requires going back to the well a few times. Both of those clubs also proved that when you serve your apprenticeship, you’re a better senior team at the end of it all.
Naturally, the presence of Strokestown in the second tier means it won’t be easy for Éire Óg next year either, but given the strength of their existing panel and the steady flow of high-quality players coming up behind them, it won’t be easy for anyone who plays them either.
After a dodgy start against Castlerea, Elphin found their groove, and by the time the semi-finals rolled around, they looked like the team to beat. There was real quality in every line of the field, while John Finnerty and Evan Gunn gave them an injection of something special up front, assisted by some superb playmaking from Fintan Cregg. In back-to-back games against Creggs and Fuerty, they looked every bit a senior team in the making.
The fact that West Roscommon, a team that was dominated by Elphin players — but shorn of the services of Aaron Brady, Niall Higgins, Aidan Murray and Killoran — gave Pádraig Pearses such a decent test, is further evidence of how strong the playing panel is at Orchard Park.
They didn’t suddenly become a bad team due to their failure to beat Éire Óg, but the question now is whether or not they’re able to reach the same heights next year. Seamus Quinn has already stepped away as manager, it remains to be seen if Shane Killoran can continue to contribute to the same degree if he remains abroad, and the rumour mill would have it that a couple of key players are also considering one-way flights.
Storm clouds on the horizon, so.
They’re much too good to be in the relegation mix, but it’s not immediately apparent that they have sufficient quality to be anything other than long shots to win a championship where Strokestown, Éire Óg, Elphin and maybe even Pearses and Brigid’s are all ahead of them on the list of potential winners.
The first half a dozen names on their teamsheet are as good as any in the county, and that’s even though Aidan Brogan, for so long a relentless accumulator of points in his club colours, was unavailable. Cathal Connelly had an excellent year, Ross Timothy, Richard Thompson and Dan Malone would be right at home in any senior club, and Mike Holland was rejuvenated by his switch to goalkeeper.
There are a couple of positions, however, where there is an element of make-and-do necessary, and although the club is in a healthier position at underage than it has been for some time, with U-20s like Callum Pacey, Aaron Garvey and Kevin Lambert stepping up well to intermediate this year while the U-16 championship was a great triumph for Oran and themselves, they are probably still a handful of players short of a matchday 20 that might win a county final.
On one level, this ranking is incredibly harsh for a club that bounced back from losing their first four league games to winning four out of 11 altogether, including a memorable last-day 1-13 to 1-12 win in Knockcroghery that kept them in the O’Rourke Cup. This was followed by three wins out of three in the group stages of the intermediate championship, and just one spectacularly bad day. They could argue with justification that that Elphin game was merely an anomaly.
Yet there were hints in a very poor game against St. Croan’s that the wheels were coming off a little bit before that Elphin debacle. The delicate balance that usually exists between Fuerty, Athleague and Tremane wobbled at times, and even in their big wins over St. Aidan’s and Kilbride, it looked like good footballers overwhelming weaker ones, rather than a cohesive, collective entity firing on all cylinders.
We haven’t forgotten that Fuerty played the best game of the 2022 intermediate championship against St. Dominic’s, and they were agonisingly close against St. Faithleach’s the previous year too. This is not a slight on their talent, but instead it’s a reflection of the fact that there is little or nothing between themselves, Elphin and St. Croan’s.
Fuerty sit third of the trio because there is no way either of those other teams would lose a big game like Fuerty did in this year’s championship quarter-final.
Their league was dismal, and nothing that happened in their championship opener against Éire Óg suggested that things were about to get any better. Then a big local derby against Kilmore came at just the right time, and out of that, they togged out against St. Brigid’s and produced their best championship showing for several seasons.
The quarter-final draw seemed to open up in their favour too, but they weren’t quite able to take advantage against Pearses. Now, in December, that’s a result that looks a lot better with the benefit of hindsight than it did at the time.
The same few players have carried the team for a long time and there’s no doubt that the likes of Fintan Sweeney and Matthew Bourke are still their leading lights, but Darragh O’Beirne and Evan Corcoran have kicked on well and look a lot more physically ready for adult football now, while behind them, Stephen Murray and Aaron Taylor clearly have a lot to offer too.
All that said, the gap between numbers 17 and 18 on this list isn’t quite as big as the leap from Pearses to Roscommon Gaels at 3 and 4 respectively, but it is the next-biggest gap between two clubs that are side-by-side. While Fuerty are intermediate championship contenders in 2024 if they get their house in order, Shannon Gaels will be long shots at best.
They’ve been doing a lot of things right around Ardcarne Park for several years now, but, even so, the transformation in the team’s fortunes this year was little short of remarkable. Take away a poor first half against Kilglass Gaels, and one bad league game against the same opponents where there were mitigating circumstances, and they were little short of flawless, while playing a very attractive and fast-paced brand of football.
Their county final display against Clann na nGael was superb, and if talisman Fiachra Henry had been fully fit for their clash with Menlough in Tuam Stadium, then who knows — Roscommon could have had the champions at all three grades of Connacht club football for the first time.
The age profile of the team suggests that they can improve further, and while we’ve to go all the way back to Creggs in 2016 to find the most recent Roscommon junior championship winning side that went on to become a regular fixture at intermediate level for a sustained period of time, St. Michael’s — along with St. Brigid’s of 2021 — look to have all the ingredients in place to be a steady force in the second tier of league and championship football.
Add in a decent minor team, made up of more St. Michael’s players than St. Ronan’s, and while they’re not really championship contenders in 2024, that could change very easily in a couple of years.
It’s easy to say that their team sheet is far too strong for them to be relegated, but that fate almost befell them this year. Losing to Elphin in the championship wasn’t a disaster in itself, but losing in the way they did might have been, as it really sucked the life out of the club and left them in a terrible place mentally ahead of a single game to decide their fate.
In the end, Ronan Dowd’s brilliance was the main reason that they remain an intermediate club, but unless they get his brother Shane back in harness, and maybe find a way to bring some of their younger players to another level, they could easily get sucked into more basement battles.
Except for their shoutout against Pádraig Pearses in Ballyforan, scoring was a huge problem for the club this year. Take Dowd out of the equation, and they got far too little from every other sector of the pitch. Midfield has been a problem for quite a few years but half-forward was a bit of a black hole too in 2023.
There were some good news stories for St. Ciarán’s, with an U-20 Division Three title and a very good showing by their U-14s too, but by the time those players are split with Fuerty, Creggs will need every one that hails from their side of the divide.
Their season ultimately hinged on their final round group game against St. Aidan’s, where they got the rub of the green in a 3-9 to 0-14 victory. St. Aidan’s were ultimately relegated, and if Kilbride had instead been condemned to those play-offs with Kilmore and Creggs, there’s every chance that they too could have made the drop.
All that said, there are some positive signs around the club, as they begin to move towards their post-Conor Devaney era. Ryan Dowling is showing plenty of signs that he could be the natural successor to the 2006 All-Ireland minor winner, while Michael Devine, Aodhán Looby and Keelan Murray are other younger players that are stepping up nicely. There’s also another wave coming, made up of the players that played Division Two minor football in 2023.
Last year, these rankings highlighted their incredible naivety on the defensive side of things. That was slightly improved this year, but they still ended up with the worst defensive record in the intermediate championship, conceding 6-53 in four games, or just under 18 points per game.
Their ongoing survival as a second tier team depends on their ability to address that glaring weakness.
Their underage partnership with Shannon Gaels has given everyone in the area a huge shot in the arm, but the cavalry can’t come soon enough for the boys in blue.
Players like Colm Garvey, Paul Garvey and Dermot Foley aren’t just involved, they continue to be key players in central positions, and that’s not sustainable for much longer, and may not even be a viable ambition for 2024.
Even this year, the introduction of Niall Holohan at half time in their relegation play-off with St. Aidan’s proved crucial, but it’s unlikely that Holohan will be available for the 2024 season, as his soccer commitments will take priority. Other younger players did make an impression this year — Mark McMahon in particular comes to mind — but as things stand, it’s hard to look past Kilmore as the favourites for relegation next year.
Six wins in the O’Gara Cup makes for decent reading, but Kilmore are largely untouched by a demand for county players in the spring, and they tend to hit the ground running, when other teams are just getting warmed up. Three wins in their first four games this year — albeit the other was a heavy loss to Michael Glaveys — proved to be a crucial platform, and a couple of narrow wins over St. Brigid’s and Éire Óg did the heavy lifting from then on.
Essentially, any real digging into the weeds of that league campaign makes it impossible to expect anything other a tough battle for the club in 2024.
They picked holes in St. Michael’s that no other club in Roscommon was able to find, and if there was a purer, more rural GAA experience in Roscommon last year than their battle with St. Barry’s in Kilmore last September, this reporter didn’t see it.
There were high points for the East Roscommon side this past year, even though ultimately, it won’t sit well with them to see St. Michael’s “jump the queue” and make their escape from junior football ahead of Kilglass, who’ve been that bit closer to the mark in recent seasons.
Whether they can find another three or four points of improvement over the next six months is another matter. All down the spine of the team they have powerful, experienced players who are very capable when it comes to executing the core skills of the game. Take out Ciarán McHugh however, and it’s debatable whether or not there is any real “X factor” in the side.
The other side of that argument is that with St. Michael’s gone out of junior, do they need to be any better than they were this year? Looking around, they may not.
For the first time since 1966, St. Aidan’s first team will play junior football in 2024. Luck wasn’t on their side this year in key games, particularly against Kilbride and Kilmore, but it has still been a considerable fall from grace from just a few years ago when they reached the last four of the intermediate championship, and on form as a whole, there can be very few complaints around Ballyforan about their fate.
As is the case in so many clubs at this level, getting their best team on the field will prove crucial, and on that front, developing a better working relationship with Four Roads is essential. From this year’s county hurling panel, leaving out those players who came in from Galway and Clare, all bar a small few players from anywhere other than Four Roads played some level of club football. Out of the substantial Four Roads contingent, only Cormac Mulry did.
It's a different story with the next generation, where teenagers Tommy Morris, Conor Kelly, Dylan Treacy and Liam Óg Coyle show huge levels of interest and ability in both sports. Make it feasible for that dual commitment to continue, add in the rest of a very strong minor team in 2023 — one that underachieved in failing to get to a Division One semi-final — and St. Aidan’s can bounce back at the first attempt this year. But as management tests go, clubman Kieran Kelly is stepping into one of the toughest exams in the county.
Lots of clubs on this list had key players absent in 2023, but no club needs all hands on deck quite as much as the county’s northernmost frontier. Losing the likes of Fergal Guihen and Eddie Noone forced management to lean heavily on a group of teenagers playing their first year of adult football, and while some of those youngsters took on the task manfully, once they got to the business end of the junior championship, and particularly that semi-final clash with Clann na nGael in Castlerea, the shallow playing pool told a tale.
Even against Strokestown in the previous round, the ‘Town could easily have found the net a couple of times in the first half, and that would have led to a very different type of game to the one that played out.
It's not going to get any better in 2024, by all accounts. A couple of stalwarts are stepping away, and their diehard, widely-respected management team, headed by Stephen Sheerin and Declan Noone, is also moving aside. This is a group that will die with their swords drawn before taking a backwards step, but some element of regression looks inevitable right now.
A bare look at the results would suggest that they were well-beaten by their neighbours and underage partners Kilglass Gaels in the junior quarter-final between the two clubs, but anyone who was there in Kilmore that Sunday will know that the game was very competitive, and right in the balance with ten minutes to go.
St. Barry’s had a bit of form in tight games too, having done just about enough to overcome Western Gaels and St. Joseph’s in order to secure second spot in the group and an automatic place in the last eight.
In the middle third of the pitch, St. Barry’s are very decent. Eoghan Diffley is as good an all-round midfielder as there is in junior football, Ciarán McManus has size and scoring power, Fiachra Leavy and former TG4 underdog Trevor Murtagh have a fair bit about them in the half-back line, and David Keenan is still a very effective player at this level, even if he’s not the force of nature he once was.
But at either end of the pitch, particularly in the full-forward line, the cupboard looks quite bare in comparison. Pauric Halpin is a good all-round player who is disciplined and conditioned enough to try and make a go of full-back, while Emmet Burke isn’t a weak link either. But if you’re conceding 19 goals in 15 competitive games, including seven in four championship matches, that’s leaving yourself too much to do at the other end.
Meanwhile, up at the top of the pitch, are uninspiring. That’s likely to limit their potential, severely.
An outstanding effort against Clann na nGael in the quarter-final of the junior championship was a much more encouraging end to a season that was painfully short on highlights otherwise.
There was a burst of form in late June when they backed up a draw with St. Michael’s by beating St. Aidan’s and St. Joseph’s in successive games, while the 1-7 to 1-6 scoreline at the end of their championship clash with Strokestown was more about the conditions than the quality of the play.
That said, over the year as a whole, they didn’t get anywhere close to the standard needed to make a meaningful tilt at championship honours.
A good run of health for Ronan Garvin will feature prominently on Santa letters around Ballinameen this winter, and in Ian Finneran, they have another star man who can carry them to a higher level. Dessie Carlos and Peter Keane are still doing their thing to great effect, so the Reds are not as far away as all that, particularly in a 2024 junior championship where there is unlikely to be a side anywhere near as good as St. Michael’s were this year.
They also have a few bright sparks on the minor side that lost the Division Two final to Castlerea, so barring a mass exodus of older players, they should get better rather than worse in the next 12 months.
Kent Brockman’s confident assertion in The Simpsons that “Democracy simply doesn’t work” certainly comes to mind as we look back on another season where St. Joseph’s were all at sea in the Tansey Cup. They got one draw against Castlerea and weren’t a million miles off against Western Gaels, but lost their other nine games by an average margin of ten points per game.
Yet the rules, willingly brought in by a majority vote, mean that they can’t sink any lower than the third tier, and so Oran — who won three games, drew one (against eventual finalists Strokestown) and lost another two by a kick of a ball — went down instead.
That does nothing to encourage players to get involved with St. Joseph’s and to help them enjoy their football, and even allowing for the greater risk of walkovers in Division Four, that tier surely looks like their level and a more appropriate place for them to build their season, particularly with a couple of key players likely to miss the entire league due to their involvement with the county hurlers.
St. Joseph’s finally won a competitive game in the summer and did so in fine style against Western Gaels on the first weekend of September, but any dreams of a fairytale run were quickly extinguished by Ballinameen next time out in the play-off.
Player wise, they have some very capable men down the spine, with Eoghan Gilleran, Johnny Mannion, Bryan Dolan and Mickey Joe Egan the obvious standouts, while Eoin Kiernan is both physically imposing and really athletic at midfield. Liam Egan, Lee Kilroe and the evergreen Paul Gilleran are others who are well able to hold their own in good company, but it tapers off a little after that.
In their unique situation, where they can’t be sure of any player coming their way until it’s signed and sealed at adult level, that’s not easy to overcome.
