McGrath focused on county crown before setting sights any further

By Kevin Egan

In a comparatively short senior adult career with St Brigid’s, Paul McGrath has seen the club defy expectations time and again. Sometimes that involved soaring over a bar that others felt was too high, other times they stumbled and crashed to the ground when they were expected to canter to glory.

In his debut season in 2019, a shock defeat to Elphin first time out was followed up with a dour 0-10 each draw with Fuerty, leading to a clash with St Croan’s where unthinkably, many people felt that St Brigid’s might even get sucked into a relegation battle.

Those fears proved to be unfounded, but still the season ended prematurely at the hands of Pádraig Pearses, who later went on to lift the Fahey Cup for the first time.

McGrath, along with a handful of other senior panellists, ended the year on a high note when they waltzed to a county U-20 title, demolishing Oran in the decider – and with a host of those players on board the following year, it was deemed that the maturity and physicality of teams like Pearses, Boyle and Clann would be too much for them.

Instead, they defied the odds to win a title, and such was the age profile of the group, that immediately expectations were flipped on the head, and people around the parish and the county began to speculate if another tilt at an All-Ireland title might be on the horizon in the near or mid-term future.

All of it is noise that the University of Galway student and his peers have had to tune out as they prepare to face Boyle in this Sunday's Roscommon SFC final at Dr Hyde Park (throw-in 2.30pm).

“That year (2020) we were underdogs, I’m nearly 100 per cent sure were underdogs in most games, certainly in the knockout rounds,” McGrath told the Westmeath Independent last week.

“I suppose really, we didn’t feel massive pressure, and all the talk about what the team might achieve didn’t really matter because it was a Covid year, we knew that there would be nothing outside of Roscommon. That year we didn’t get a crack at Connacht really, so it was left to the side until six months later when we got training again. We obviously lost to Pearses then the following year. So, that was an awakening when we weren’t at it at that moment”

So expectations have tempered – to a degree. McGrath clearly still harbours ambitions of making an impression outside the county, but he appreciates that this group have to earn the right to talk about such things by taking the place of Strokestown and winning the Roscommon championship first and foremost.

“We have to tune it out. You have lads there that are down to earth, Ronan (Stack) and all of them, they’ve been there before and they know we have a bit to go before we are at that standard. Obviously, there’s people saying stuff around the club but sure that’s going to happen when you win when you’re so young. Add the few Connacht titles at underage level. so you’re obviously going to get that talk.

“Our goal over the past three or so years has to win a county championship and then we can worry about Connacht and All-Ireland. Obviously, lads have ambitions to go further, that’s the tradition in the club from before, so as young lads, we’re thinking of that sort of success and then especially when we won a couple at underage in Connacht, we know it’s in us. But we have to go and prove it.”

And so the cycle begins again. At the start of the year, McGrath was one of seven St Brigid’s players in with the county senior panel, substantial representation for a club that was never likely to struggle to back up their elite stars with capable, quality footballers to fill out a strong senior panel.

Yet back then, they were just one of seven or eight clubs that were considered to be in the mix.

Now, such has been their form, that there are those who suspect Sunday’s final will be a coronation, as opposed to a competition.

Once again, the words “tune it out” are used.

“I think the last two years were good learnings,” he contends.

“Winning it the first year together, you have this perception that it’s going to last but it doesn’t unless you keep the work rate up. We got shown the last two years that we weren’t up to it. We’ve learned from that, and I feel like this year training has been a lot better than the last two years and a lot more depth. There’s 30 lads there and when we have As v Bs games there’s a serious standard and there’s good bite in the games. Maybe we didn’t have that depth in previous years.”

The fact that it was Boyle who knocked them out of the 2022 championship will also be relevant in keeping St Brigid’s tuned in and at their sharpest, he believes.

“We didn’t play well enough that day. I’d say if we asked everyone on the pitch, they each probably could have done better that day, apart from maybe Ben (O'Carroll), who is always brilliant. But even if we played better it still mightn’t have been different, if both Boyle and us play to 100 percent, it’s still going to be a tight game with the type of players they have.

“The last day was good, but there are still some things against Roscommon Gaels that we could improve on. We got a good start and then they had to come out and play, so it depends on how it goes. Like it could have been like the Boyle v Pearses game where it’s nip and tuck and every score is hard-earned.

“Sometimes a game can just go like that naturally,” McGrath continues.

“Even if both teams don’t plan it, but especially depending on weather, and the forecast isn’t great. We’re not going to try and play the game in a specific way; we’ll just play it whatever way it comes.

“Obviously it’s been spoken about in the dressing room that we owe them one, and they were probably saying the same thing last year. Obviously that plays on your mind a bit but it’s probably easier focus in on that than it being a county final.”

Focus on the final, focus on Boyle, focus on his own gameplan. Anything other than the chatter and idle speculation, seems to be Paul McGrath’s approach.