'Youngsters have given Rorys a new lease of life' - Fitzpatrick

Paul Fitzpatrick spoke to Belturbet captain Brendan Fitzpatrick.

Since he first burst on to the scene as a mercurial young scoring forward, Belturbet's Brendan 'Bud' Fitzpatrick has witnessed a lot of change.
The game is different – fiercer, maybe – and getting by, even at club level, by training a couple of evenings a week just won't cut it any more.
"I started in around 2006, 2007, something like that, and definitely the commitment has stepped up and been brought on by the players themselves,” the Belturbet captain told The Anglo-Celt this week. 
“You'd see some of the young lads are up at the pitch kicking points two or three times a week, they're always training in gyms and as much as the manager is pushing us on, so are the players. And it is impressive.
"Twenty years ago, you trained a couple of times a week and then played the game but now doing as much as you can do away from training is just as important - that's a big step up."
Having played in an Ulster U21 final with Cavan and started in the Ulster Senior Championship, Fitzpatrick has always had huge natural ability as a footballer and has long been recognised as one of the most gifted attackers on the club scene.
However, he admits that he has had to train harder than ever now to keep up with the pace.
"Definitely, I was never the most athletic type,” he says modestly, “but just being involved with some of these young lads in training... physically, they are very well-adapted and physically ready at 19, 20.
“Whereas it used to take a few years to step up to play proper senior football, some of these young players are physically and mentally ready. It's impressive and you do have to keep pushing but also it keeps the older players on their feet, too - there are a few of us struggling to get starting in the team and that's down to the young ones that are coming in."
Ahead of this Sunday's Intermediate Football Championship final, Fitzpatrick pinpoints a clean bill of health as being key to the Rorys' extended run this year.
"I suppose the big difference is that we've cleared up a lot of injuries. In the last three years, we've had fairly serious injuries, with cruciates and things like nthat, so we didn't have a full selection.
“That has been a big factor and probably the injection of youth over the last year or two with more lads stepping up, that's been a big difference for us because we've quite an experienced team with a lot of people around 30-plus but with our younger lads - say 18, 19, 20 - some of them have really pushed on and really helped us.
“That's probably the biggest step up for us this year - it just means it spreads out the responsibility.”

How much of that falls to the captain?
"I wouldn't say it brings any extra duties, there's probably 10 or 12 lads that've played Senior Championship football, so we're all fairly experienced and we've all captained in different years gone past, so I wouldn't say there's any difference between captain and non-captain, it's just a matter of pushing on. 
“The older players, they take the responsibility; the younger players have pushed on so the pressure's off them. It's up to the older players to step up come the final."
When Brendan looks back on the campaign to date, he pinpoints the opening day win over a fancied Ballinagh as key.
"Well, obviously, you want to start out with a win and Ballinagh would have been favourites, coming down from senior, so we new we had to set out our stall from the beginning and it was step by step after that.
“In this division, it's very competitive - there are probably five or six teams that you could win or lose to on the day so we were just concentrating on our step-by-step process to get us this far. Every game was important in its own sense but you also want to get off to a winning start, so that set out where we wanted to be and then we took it from there."
As for Sunday's opponents, Fitzpatrick has been impressed with what he has seen,
"I've seen them last year when they beat us well in the championship  and I was quite impressed with them. They're probably favourites, playing in Division 1. 
"They're youthful, free-scoring - I think they scored 2-16 or 2-17 in the semi-final - and we haven't scored like that, yet. They're a good team and that's not talking them up - we'll be under pressure but I think it'll be a good game of football and we're similar enough teams in that we'll both be going out to play football and, hopefully, the best team wins. But I have been impressed with them."
On a personal level, 'Bud' will be a proud man to lead the team into such a big occasion.
"Definitely, it's the biggest day in our football history in a way in that we haven't been there in 23 years. Looking back on the last team that got there, they're probably the best team that's ever played for Belturbet and some of those big players that we've looked up to got out and won it and we'd like to emulate that. 
“To push on and win a final would be a big thing for the community and all the older players that have been involved in the seasons gone since the final, so we're just looking forward to it, to be honest."