Brigid’s need improved display to secure Connacht success

By Kevin Egan

In the immediate aftermath of St Brigid’s narrow win over Mohill recently, Jerome Stack said that it was irrelevant whether the final margin of victory was two points, 12 points, or 22 points, as long as his team had the larger number of the two.

The nature of Irish sporting psychology - and it’s a mindset that tends to be distilled down to its purest form in the Gaelic games sphere - is such that for some teams, winning by two is the best option out of those three outcomes. After all, few locations are deemed more comfortable than the old favourite, “waiting in the long grass”.

The thing about that, however, is that grass doesn’t grow that long around clubs like St Brigid’s and Corofin. With success and tradition comes expectation, and the presumption that at any given time, if ducks can be made to line up in a row, these teams will have the potential to compete with anyone.

The concern around Kiltoom and Cam this week is that while their potential is unquestioned and it’s impossible to know as of yet how high their ceiling might be, Corofin have proven that they have a pretty high floor.

Under Kevin Johnson, the Galway side were clearly a revitalised force in 2023 and from early on, key figures in the club were much more bullish about their prospects. Younger players like Jack McCabe, Brian Cogger and Patrick Egan have made a significant impact this year, and while the narrative that has gone around has centred on the impact of their star-studded bench, it has been the energy and quality provided by this next generation that has been key to their impressive wins over Maigh Cuilinn and Ballina Stephenites in their last two games.

Cogger was up and down the pitch in Pearse Stadium relentlessly while McCabe kicked some superb points, four from play in total, but it was Egan who was arguably the real eye-catcher, contributing hugely in all facets of play from midfield. This has been a stronghold for St Brigid’s all year, with Eddie Nolan and Shane Cunnane forming a very powerful partnership, and Mark Daly also coming in late to bolster the sector if needed, but Egan’s mobility will give them a very different type of test.

Another wonderful piece of misdirection from the Corofin PR machine has been the idea that they are an all-singing, all-dancing attacking machine, a club for the purists that has elevated themselves above the tawdry behaviour of defending in large numbers and moving the ball from side-to-side through the hands when the need arises.

Needless to say this is all the stuff of myth and legend, and St Brigid’s will face just as many players obstructing their path to goal on Sunday as they have in any previous game this year, inside or outside of Roscommon.

Where there may be a change will be in the speed and accuracy of Corofin’s counter attack, and negating that will form a central part of the strategy of the Roscommon champions. That battle will begin in the contest between the St Brigid’s half-forwards and the Corofin half-backs, and this is where the initial premise offered by Jerome Stack – that the margin of victory against Mohill didn’t matter – starts to disintegrate under the cold, hard light of reality.

Paul McGrath has been in superb form this year, peaking in the county final, while Conor Hand didn’t light up the early part of the campaign but has found another gear since the club’s U-20 win over Pádraig Pearses. Robbie Dolan, for his part, is a player whose influence is understated and largely built around being in the right place at the right time, arguably more often than anyone else – but in the case of the Mohill game, none of the three were at the level they would like.

They weren’t alone. On a day when Ben O’Carroll was very well-marshalled and Ciarán Sugrue was also relatively peripheral, Shane Cunnane also had his quietest performance in some time, and as a unit, the St Brigid’s midfield was over-run in the final ten minutes. However it’s at half-forward where the Roscommon club need to find their mojo more than anywhere else.

There will be no lack of honest effort from the Hand/McGrath/Dolan trio as all three will chase and track as if their lives depended on it, but if players like Cogger, Dylan McHugh and Gavin Burke are to be curtailed, the most obvious way to do that would be to give them a substantial job of work defensively.

Ben O’Carroll will be a threat but up against Liam Silke, he’s unlikely to completely run riot, as he did against a painfully naïve Coolera-Strandhill side. Bobby Nugent picked up his share of the slack and more besides against Mohill, but if a disproportionate amount of the scoring burden falls to a teenager in a game like this, St Brigid’s are likely to struggle.

Winning by two points against Mohill was enough to secure a place in the Connacht final, but a dramatic improvement in standard will be required for there still to be a trophy to fight for with ten minutes to go in the Hyde on Sunday. We’d feel a lot more confident about that if the Leitrim club had been beaten by 12 or 22 last time out.