EXPERIENCE, quality, pace, the tailormade gameplan and their astute manager… St Brigid’s skipper Brian Stack watches a lot of football so he knows all about Ulster champions Glen.
He knows how good they are and that the bookies tip them to win on Sunday but Corofin were blessed with the same qualities and they were tipped as well but Stack and his unfancied Roscommon team-mates beat them convincingly in the Connacht final.
So Stack expects the best but he knows reputations and predictions add up to nothing when the ball is thrown up for Sunday’s All-Ireland senior club football final.
“Listen, they’re a fabulous side,” he said.
“They’ve been knocking on the door for a couple of years.
“They’re just so tactically aware. Derry are probably the most tactically aware inter-county team and obviously the lads are bringing that back into the club and then you throw Malachy O’Rourke on top of that, a really established manager.
“So yeah, they’re just very tactically aware and they have great speed in their side coming from the back and they have some really dangerous forwards.
“A well-rounded team and we’ll have our work cut out for us but we’ll put our best foot forward and see what happens.”
As the performances of Cullyhanna and Arva (in winning) and Listowel and Cill na Martra (in losing) proved last Sunday, All-Ireland finals at every level are about playing the game, not the occasion. Stack, whose father was in Croke Park cheering on his native Listowel, is confident the Roscommon outfit will produce their best against Watty Graham’s golden generation.
“Listen, it’s just 60 minutes of football, two teams, we’ll just be thinking about our performance,” he said.
“If we put our best performance forward and it’s not good enough, well then so be it, you can’t do anything about it. As long as we produce our best that’s the main thing, that’s what we’ll be looking for on Sunday.”
Stack was 15 when a St Brigid’s side that included his elder brother Ronan (still a mainstay in the half-back line) recovered from trailing by 2-3 to a point after 10 minutes to beat Ballymun Kickham’s in the 2013 All-Ireland final.
“I remember it all,” said full-back/man-marker Brian who is expected to pick up Glen forward Danny Tallon on Sunday.
“I’ve watched it a few times since as well. It was a great, great excitement, and hopefully this weekend we can do the same. It definitely showed me what was possible. When I was that age I was playing a few sports and it kind of made my mind up what sport I was going to concentrate on and when you see your own club doing it, you definitely can’t help but think: ‘That could be me one day’.
“But when you start playing you realise how hard it is and it hasn’t come easy, a lot of hard work has gone into it to make it happen and to get us this far this year.”
SUNDAY’S final will be St Brigid’s third. The first was a loss to Crossmaglen in 2011 but it paved the way for the triumph of 2013. Since then the Kiltoom outfit have been the dominant force in Roscommon but had lost both provincial finals they reached until they beat Corofin by five points in early December.
Glen’s near-miss last year and their dethroning of defending champions Kilmacud means their favourites tag is justified but since winning Derry their form in this campaign has been solid and not always spectacular with wins coming by four (against 14-man Cargin), one, two and one-point margins.
Stack doesn’t mind the underdog tag at all.
“I wouldn’t read too much into that,” he said.
“Clubs around the country don’t know too much about each other so it’s very hard to put a favourites tag on teams, I suppose you just have to look at recent history but it’s not something we read into too much.”
St Brigid’s were four points ahead of Cork’s Castlehaven in their semi-final but they ran into a barren spell in the third quarter. It took a monster effort from substitute John Cunningham to breathe new life into the side and, in the end, they got over the line by four points.
“A good start is obviously important for every game,” said Stack.
“But even looking back to the 2013 All-Ireland, we went eight points down and clawed it back so I suppose it’s not the be-all and end-all, if you get a bad start it’s not game over.”
It was only after the final whistle at Semple Stadium that pragmatic Stack allowed himself to start thinking of the possibility of Croke Park and winning an All-Ireland.
“Most players think about it that it could happen, or dream of it happening,” he says.
“It’s not as if I start every year writing down on a page: ‘I want to get to a club All-Ireland and win it’.
“But look, you try to win every game that’s in front of your nose and that’s brought us this far, so yeah, we’re entitled to think about it now.”