Brigid's boss expects 'one hell of a battle' from underdogs Elphin

The St Brigid's ladies regained their county title last weekend and now the senior men's team are bidding to claim the blue riband of Roscommon football at Dr Hyde Park this Sunday. The Kiltoom and Cam side are facing an Elphin side who few expected to be in the final, but St Brigid's manager Noel O'Brien said he was not particularly surprised that Elphin overcame defending champions Castlerea St Kevin's in the semi-finals. "I watched Castlerea against Kilmore and I just though the sharpness that they had last year wasn't quite there. When you're going for three-in-a-row, it's difficult. I know Brigid's have done it, but there's huge pressure on. But credit to Elphin, they didn't let Castlerea play football and on the day Elphin were the better team," said O'Brien. Given that St Brigid's lost to Castlerea in the opening round of the championship, O'Brien could be forgiven for being glad to see the back of them. But he insists he had no preference for who his side would meet in the final. "We focus on one game at a time ... and I keep saying to the lads, 'it's another game, it's two points, forget about finals, semi-finals, just think of it as two points you have to win'. Once we got to the final, I didn't care who was in the final, and I'm not being flippant about it," said O'Brien, who works in local company Athlone Extrusions. "Elphin are there on merit as they have beaten the county champions of the last two years (Castlerea), and they beat the team who were in the final last year, Western Gaels. I know they're going to be a very difficult side to beat, but there's no point going into a final unless you believe you can win it. "Great credit is due to the lads, they've put in a huge amount of effort. I know they've been out of it the last two years, injuries and other things didn't help. But the hunger is back this year and you can see it in training and, once the county lads came back, training stepped up big time. "We didn't really start training till the middle of May. It's a long year and we were hoping and planning to get to a county final and move on, so we tried to time our run rather than starting training in January or February. I've been around a long time and you learn from mistakes and experience. It has worked so far but whether it works in the final is another thing. "We didn't deserve to beat Castlerea in our first match, they got a lucky goal, we missed a penalty and we another great goal chance we didn't take. We were missing some players, John Tiernan was missing. Senan Kilbride has come back, he's made a huge difference. We had better options for the Pearses game. Pearses put it up to us, I know we won by five points but it was touch and go for a long period. Against Clann na nGael, we also won by five points, but again it was touch and go. In the semi-final against St Faithleach's, we started off like a mail train, we were five up, then we lost our focus and concentration, let them back into it, then we came again. There's a great spirit there but you can't beat experience. There's great leadership there and we needed it," continued the Brigid's manager. The pressure of dealing with the expectations surrounding his squad is one of the issues that have affected Brigid's in the past, O'Brien believes. "I think one of the problems we have since I came here is that every time we won a game, we always felt that the opposition wasn't tough enough or whatever. We didn't give ourselves enough credit, so what we're trying to instil into them is belief that they're as good as anybody on any given day. "Expectation about the team was part of the problem, it's probably what they were listening to and taking it all in. It can get into your head because you won seven or eight under-21 titles but no matter what you've won, it's on the day. If you don't perform on a given day in the championship, you're going to have a serious problem. The day of putting a Brigid's jersey over your head and saying 'that's going to work for me' is over; it doesn't happen that way. You've got to make it happen on the field. "There's a great hunger at the moment and the attitude is very, very good. They're a great bunch of lads. There's fellas out there that train on nights that we don't normally train. It just shows the hunger is back, they want to get a title back this year. It's not about management, it's about players at the end of the day, that's where the credit goes. O'Brien is wary of the threat posed by Peter Carney's Elphin side. "I was involved with a Brigid's team a couple of years ago and Elphin beat us in the county minor final. They're a good side, they always had great talent in Elphin, but for some reason, it never seemed to come through. But Peter Carney took them over this year and he's done a fantastic job with them and they've great respect for him. They've a lot of county minors and a couple of seniors like Fintan Cregg. Brian Higgins was there, he went to Australia, but there's a rumour that he could back playing again. Conor Beirne came back from London and he's playing in the half-back line, so they have some very good players," said O'Brien. "They're going to make it one hell of a battle. They haven't won a senior county title since 1957 so they're not going to lie down and let our fellas walk all over them. If we're going to win, we've going to have up our performance big time but if we get more consistency in our play, I think we'll get there," added the former Fr Manning Gaels manager