Time for the Andy Merrigan Cup to return to Kiltoom
IN IT TO WIN IT: Brian Derwin and his St. Brigid's team-mates will be hoping to celebrate the club's second All-Ireland triumph in Croke Park on Sunday. Picture: INPHOJames Crombie
A novel pairing, but a final St. Brigid’s will feel can complete the road to redemption.
Two years ago, a young, inexperienced side rocked up to Croke Park, and that innocence probably cost them coming up the home stretch when they had a grizzled Glen outfit by the throat, but couldn’t land the killer blow.
On Sunday, much of the same team — still with a scarily young age profile — will try to emulate their heroes from 2013. When Martin McNally gets the game underway at 3.40 p.m., the reality that they’ll never have a better chance won’t be lost on the players and management.
There has been a lot of talk this week about the challenge of meeting a Kerry team in an All-Ireland final. The Geaneys, Tom O’Sullivan and Mark O’Connor are no strangers to big games, but it is the collective that can get Brigid’s over the line.
Yes, there are concerns about Dingle getting a run on them at midfield, and if the West Kerry outfit are presented with the same chances that Scotstown were, they won’t be so wayward in front of goal.
But Brigid’s have negotiated a multitude of different challenges to get here. Teams have been physical with them, teams have targeted their midfield and full-back line, and teams have tried to meet attacking fire with fire.
In the end, the report card has been the same — Brigid’s have found a way to win.
That’s the beauty about this group of St. Brigid’s players. They can adapt as a result of their footballing intellect, they are blessed with leadership, and they know that, more often than not, team-mates will often sacrifice themselves for the good of the team.
In other words, this is a team that County Roscommon can be proud to send into battle on the biggest day in the club calendar in the knowledge that they won’t let anyone down.
Of course, that doesn’t guarantee success, but a Dingle side that winning their first Kerry SFC in 77 years, claiming a first Munster crown and going all the way to All-Ireland glory to become only the third team from the Kingdom in 30 years to lift club football’s most famous trophy is, even by Kerry standards, the stuff of dreams.
The all-conquering 2013 team had to lose the 2011 final against Crossmaglen to learn about what it actually took to reach the promised land.
The class of 2026, after their disappointment of two years ago, are in an eerily similar position.
But beating Pádraig Pearses, after a replay, Ballina Stephenites, Maigh Chuillin and Scotstown leaves them battle-hardened, and prepared, for anything Dingle will throw at them.
Rest assured that the men from West Kerry will fling plenty towards the “Green and Red” corner. But it’s heavy artillery that St. Brigid’s will have prepared for.
For their parish, for Anthony Cunningham, and for themselves, the St. Brigid’s players deserve this success. But it’s not a sense of entitlement. They’ve put in the hard yards and will back themselves, allied with their natural skill, to deliver.
It’s time for the Andy Merrigan Cup to return to Kiltoom.
