AIB All-Ireland Club SFC final: Glen v St Brigid’s (Sunday, 3.30pm, Croke Park, live on TG4)
M1 TO M2 to A6. It’s a long road at the best of times but by the time Glen got home from Croke Park in the dark of night last January, they’d have been forgiven for never wanting to see it again.
Time heals, but it doesn’t guarantee. The cavalcade will begin to depart again on Saturday morning, buoyant, forgetful, forgiving. The rest will trickle through the tolls around lunchtime Sunday. Croke Park? You can never see enough of it.
You never know the value of moments until they’re memories. And it can happen very quickly.
Recent history allied with Glen’s age profile offered a balance of probability that they would make it back again, if not in 2024 then some time soon after.
Aside from the last two All-Ireland winners to both have been beaten in the previous final, Glen are the seventh club in the last ten years alone to make a second decider.
Kilmacud, Kilcoo, Corofin, Dr Crokes, Castlebar and Slaughtneil were the others.
You could, if you think the weight will hold, add St Brigid’s but that they only have Ronan Stack of their starting 2013 team and Cormac and Eoin Sheehy from the subs does make it a bare thread.
It has become very difficult not to reference Slaughtneil’s experience when speaking of Glen. All-Ireland finalists in 2015 and ‘17, they were in a county semi-final going for five-in-a-row in Derry in 2018. Just when people were thinking they’d never be stopped, the run ended and Croke Park disappeared from view.
Nobody can envisage this Watty Graham’s side losing their native title any time soon. They might win four, five, six, but it will end some day. And there is no guarantee they’ll ever get back here again.
When Derek O’Mahoney’s final whistle sounded twelve months ago, Kilmacud had Conor Ferris’ redemptive right-hand to thank for surviving the late swipe of Conor Glass’s right boot.
The sixteenth man debate whipped up fairly quick but in those initial moments, the only sense was that they’d just left an All-Ireland behind.
They’ve avenged that and all now but to go back this weekend thinking that they’re owed one because of it all would surely see them beaten.
The biggest danger for Glen is not complacency. It’s thinking that complacency is their biggest danger.
St Brigid’s get to slip in beneath the radar. They appear to have a full deck, whereas the Derry champions are fretting and sweating on two key men, Ryan Dougan and Jack Doherty.
Anything other than both starting would be a surprise but it’s how they hold up in Croke Park, where there’s only full-tilt. Dougan’s hamstring is a lesser worry than Doherty’s ankle.
They’re big players. Dougan’s departure from the game in Newry was the catalyst for Kilmacud’s recovery. Paul Mannion only came into the game thereafter and it was on his back that their big finish was carried.
St Brigid’s and Glen are not dissimilar. A strong spine, pacy scorers from deep, a midfield that can hold its own.
The Roscommon men will feel Ben O’Carroll is their ace in the hole. He has been a revelation since his good start to the league with Roscommon last year. Liam Silke couldn’t get a handle on him at all for Corofin.
His 7-32 outstrips Danny Tallon’s 3-23 at the top of their respective charts but he’s the type of forward – small and fast - that Glen don’t usually mind.
Yet Glen’s spread of scorers hasn’t had enough credit. It was nine again the last day. They’ve had nine or more scorers eight times in their 13 games. Punters can get so hung up on marquee forwards but they’re about as collective an outfit as you’d find.
Malachy O’Rourke’s job for the last two weeks will have been to stave off any sense whatsoever that the work was done by beating Kilmacud. It was not. This is a dangerous game for Glen because the world is, rightly, expecting them to win.
A fraction off, it becomes a long road home again.
All year they’d brought just about enough to games until those brilliant first 40 minutes where they blew Kilmacud away.
Anything similar and they will emulate the last two winners as the previous season’s beaten finalists.
Glen by three.