'I think I had someone looking after me today'

PAUL FITZPATRICK looks back on an amazing, emotionally-charged afternoon for Ballinagh talisman Padraic O’Reilly, who turned in a Man of the Match performance in his first senior final.

A LONG-AWAITED day in the life of Reilly. Put yourself in the footballer’s boots for a moment.
You are Padraic O’Reilly, former captain of the Cavan senior football team, 27 years old, and on your broad shoulders rest the hopes of a whole town.
A long day begins early for you, your team-mates and management. The squad attend Mass together in St Felim’s Church in Ballinagh. In the cool air of the chapel, players fidget and cough and crack surreptitous jokes. Nerves are beginning to build.
Maybe you say a few prayers. For your team, this is the biggest day of their sporting lives. For you and your brothers, midfield partner Niall and panellist Martin, Mass is a special one. It is your late mother’s memorial mass.
The lads chat outside the chapel and then make their way to the dressing-rooms to talk about the day. Some teams turn up for a county final, get caught up in it. That won’t be us, boys. We’re going to Breffni Park to win.
The mood is good. Out the door then, on to the bus, carrying footballs and jerseys, water bottles, tracksuits, players, selectors, and a dream.

THE talk all week has been that Ballinagh are wasting their time taking on a machine like Cavan Gaels. Sure, the Gaels were toppled in the league a few weeks back in Ballinagh but that was a match played in freak weather conditions, a day when the Gaels rested some star names.
The craic and the buzz has been good — how could it not be when the Cavan Gaels manager is a Garda based in your town and has had a Ballinagh flag adorning his station, and when a few young bucks have bought an old banger and painted it yellow and white? — but everyone knows Ballinagh’s part in the narrative of this championship is that of best supporting actors.
It’s Cavan Gaels’ title, the bookies have said, posting odds of 1/8, which have been taken. By throw-in, they’ll have shortened to 1/9.
Your team coach bears the legend “Ballinagh — history makers” but the neutrals aren’t convinced. Cavan Gaels will be too young, too energetic, too strong, too much, too soon for this Ballinagh team, and the world knows it.
But perhaps you can notice something different in the faces of your team-mates, the “unsung heroes” you’ll talk about later on. We’ll see. You leave the bus and get ready for battle.

UNDER the stand, all is calm. Normally, on county final day, another big game, another 30 lives colliding, will whet the appetites of the hordes, but today is different. A bereavement has seen the intermediate final postponed, meaning that a Reserve Division 2 match that should have been played off-Broadway on the 3G pitch before a smattering of supporters the previous evening is promoted to curtain-raiser for the main event.
The players of Drung and Laragh United give it their all but instead of whipping the crowd, partisans and neutrals alike, into a frenzy, the over-riding feeling among the small attendance — estimated at less than 3,000 — is impatience.Those above, in the stand and on the terraces, can hear it in the voice of the announcer after the full-time whistle blows.
“There will be extra time, ten minutes each half, so I ask the teams to remain on the field and we will get it turned around as quickly as possible,” he states abruptly.
A county board official pokes his head around the door of your dressing-room. “There’s extra time, there will be a 15-minute delay, boys,” he advises.
Balls are bouncing, studs are rattling, stomachs are churning, moreso now with the hold-up. You say your piece, the manager speaks, and then there’s a roar and it’s off, down the tunnel, Killian leading the players, out and into the light.

HIGH in the rear of the stand, out of your ear-shot but close enough for this correspondent to tune in, two neutrals are talking about the game about to unfold.
“I wonder will Ballinagh step up?” asks one.
“I doubt it, the Gaels are getting better and better all year,” replies his companion, scanning through his programme.
“I’d say you’re right,” concedes the first fella.
That is the common consensus, alright — Ballinagh can hope to keep it tight for a while but the Gaels will do what they usually do and will be in front by the time the long whistle sounds. They breed winners in Terry Coyle Park, and they’re here to do just that. Move along, folks, the logic has it — nothing to see here...

HOW much can you remember of the game? At midfield, it’s frantic, more pinball wizardry than magical tricks with the ball so, maybe, not that much. It’s 4.15pm when ref Kieran McCarville hoists the leather, and you are the first man among the 30 on the field to touch it.
Early, you ship a huge shoulder from the Doc Collins — a hit that could have cast doubt on the veracity of the great man’s hypocratic oath — but you bounce back off the turf and Niall McDermott converts the free. One-nil. Game on.
Ballinagh settle quickly and, after 15 minutes, the teams have been tied three times.
You’re content. As it unfolds, you know your tactics are spot on. Ballinagh are succeeding where many have failed – dragging the rabble-rousing Eamon Reilly out of the centre of the Gaels defence – and the backs, Killian, Conor, Butsy, are sticking to the likes of Sean Johnston and Martin Dunne like butter to toast.
You win a couple of kick-outs and then drive through the middle and send over a point yourself. Next ball, you lay it off to the brother and he kicks one. Suddenly, Ballinagh are four ahead, 0-7 to 0-3, and the Gaels are rattled.
Next thing you know, the half-time whistle sounds and your team are eight-five up. With your back against the cold wall of the dressing-room, you take a drink, Ciaran O’Reilly tells the lads to keep working and working. You speak again, then clap your hands together and get back at it.

THE second half begins and Ballinagh miss a chance. At the other end, Johnston is blocked down – a rare thing, which elicits a cheer – but Cavan Gaels are building well and Dunne gets through for a goal chance, which he sends inches over the bar.
Next, Declan Meehan waltzes down the middle and fires one over and there’s only a point in it. Time to do something, and you soar and grab the ball at midfield, Ballinagh attack, win a free and Niall does what Niall does. Breathing space again.
Then you have it again, and there’s the other Niall, your brother. You hand him the football, he gives it to Terry Smith and there’s another point. You look around your team-mates and clench your first – we’re here to win, boys.
Declan Beard is standing over a kick-out, you put your hand up and call it and then you catch it but the Gaels turn the ball over and attack in a great blue wave. Dunne scores and now there’s only two points in it.
The Gaels have been here so many times, seen so many things on the big day. Teams come at them for a while but they hold them off and gradually over-power them – that’s the way of it. When a Ballinagh kick-out goes over the sideline, McDermott misses his first kick of the day, Lyng points from play, and the big clock ticks 11, 12, 13 minutes since your team scored, maybe you start to doubt if the dream will come true at all...

CHAMPIONSHIP matches, most of the time, are won in the last ten minutes. On any given Sunday, any 15 can play close with any other but when the finishing line is in sight, one usually gets distracted by the glint of the silverware. A fingertip here, a toenail there, will decide it.
Ballinagh have a throw-in on the Gaels 20-metre line. You lost one earlier, bustled off it by Marc Leddy, but in you go again, and this time it’s your finger that connects with the ball, and it’s your man, Thomas Moore, who gathers and wheels away and slots over.
It’s 11 points to 10, with six minutes to play. Gotta get this next ball...
So it rises and spins through the air, but you leap and you have it safe. Inside, you see McDermott’s ginger head and you aim for his chest. Niall has it, and is fouled. Niall converts. Two in it. You breathe again.

THEY say that in moments of high stress, the brain reacts by slowing things down. Did the last few desperate moments, scrambling for possession, holding off Cavan Gaels’ late, daring surge play out like a slow motion film reel for those in the middle of it all? We don’t know. Long after the allotted time, the Gaels have a free, 20 metres out, just to the left of centre.
Johnston stands over it. The returned son of Terry Coyle, prodigal with the last 12 months of his career maybe but born for county final day, is handed a chance to put a poetic finish to a dramatic year. He has to go for goal, he shoots high but a hand goes up, a Ballinagh hand, and it strikes the ball and deflects it over the bar.
The long whistle sounds and you scream at the sky, and embrace your brothers and your team-mates, neighbours, friends and relations. Killian lifts the cup but when you are announced as the Man of the Match, the cheers can be heard in Ballinagh itself.

AFTER the explosion comes the aftermath. When the smoke clears, there is back-slapping and tears, hugs and kisses and photographs and consoling hand-shakes to the opposition, who take defeat like the great champions they have been.
Stopped by a reporter on the field, you find it hard to make sense of everything. It all spills out.
“It’s emotional, it’s one of those things, football isn’t played on paper or in dressing-rooms, it’s played out on a field like this. Emotion comes into it and that bit of will and that’s what we had today. It shone through there when they came back at us – and we knew they’d come back at us, they’re too good of a team not to – we really stood up.
“I can’t describe it. You wait so long to win a title and you nearly don’t know what to do when you do win it… It’s 125 years this year, it’s like it was written in the stars, it’s just unbelievable.
“This is unique, this is this team’s first final and our first ever senior title.”
It’s only afterwards that it sinks in, when you’re in the Hotel Kilmore, about to eat before the homecoming, and you take out your mobile phone to find the messages flooding in.
It’s been a long day since Mass this morning, but the adrenaline means you’re not tired. It’ll be a long night yet.
As the Oliver Plunkett Cup gleams like a light at the top table, you compose a tweet, a snapshot in time and a thanks to the well-wishers.
“What a feeling,” you write, simple and concise, “I think I had someone looking after me today.”