Brady: ‘There’s a good, healthy respect between the clubs’

SFC final preview

When Jack Brady first broke into the Ramor United senior team, the club’s last senior final appearance was very much in the rear view mirror. Times have changed; including replays, the Virginia men will play in a sixth senior final in eight calendar years this Sunday.

Experience, he says, lends perspective to the big occasions.

“The further away you get from say 2019, a game (county final) you lost - you think at the time it's the end of the world and then you go through other things in life, and you realise it's only a game of football and that's the same for winning it as well,” Brady explained at the media launch last Wednesday night.

“So look, we're all looking forward to it. I suppose the experience that I have, and other lads in the panel have, we know we're not going to get too high or too low about it, just we're going to go out and it's one game at a time.

“We're off this weekend, so we can relax for this week and kind of start enjoying the build up to it next week. I think the whole squad are looking forward to it.”

Ramor won the league in good style, ending a wait which had stretched from 1996, but their form in the group stages was up and down. Since the quarter-final, they have turned a corner.

“The group stages were funny. Looking back on it now with the benefit of hindsight, we had Ballyhaise the first day and they proved to be a very difficult animal for everybody. So you didn't really know where you were when you won the game.

“Coming off the field, talking to a couple of lads, we kind of had a gut feeling that we did rightly, to put out fires and to actually get over the line. And we must give Ballyhaise credit, they probably should have beaten us, but we managed to get the two points which were vital.

“The Mullahoran game, Cormac O’Reilly was probably the player of the championship at the time. He had a great first half, and we managed to nullify him then in the second half, and managed to get a couple of scores, and then the last, probably, maybe five to 10 minutes of that game was probably like an U12 or U14 game, us giving the ball back to them and saying, ‘here, score’, and they're giving the ball back to us, ‘no, we don't want to win it, you go and win it’.

“The Killygarry game was probably a bit of a shoot-out. Both teams just went for it and credit Killygarry for that too. It was probably all-out attacking football, it was a very enjoyable game to play in.

“And then Cavan Gaels, they probably had a different mindset completely, where they had to win the game, or so they thought. And we had one foot in a quarter-final. So it's always in the back of your head when you're going out in Crosskeys against Cavan Gaels, they're fired up but you're already through.

“So you're probably thinking in the back of your head, look, ‘don't pick up a niggle or knock here’. I’m adamant that's probably worth the guts of two or three points to a team.

“Then the quarter-final with Castlerahan, we have massive respect for them and obviously it's a derby game, so you were just worried about getting through the game. And it was cagey for 40 minutes, and credit to Castlerahan.

“They did an awful lot right on the day, and we just managed to pick the lock and probably pull away, the bit of athleticism with Garreth Manion coming on and a few more lads from the bench, that just kind of brought that extra bit of gap and spaces in the forward line, and we managed to pick off a few scores in second half.

“The scoreline at the end, I don't think it did Castlerahan much justice, to be honest. And then the semi-final, it was a bit of a chess match - in the first half, we went four points up, kind of doing what Pat and Jude sent us out to do, and we just put we pulled the handbrake up and started to retreat a little bit too much, and Oisin Pierson and a few more of them kicked a couple of points from range and brought them back into the game and we were probably lucky to go in a point up at half-time.

“And then in the second half, it was point for point, and we managed to get the goals, Gareth got the goal at the right time, and then the other goal, then to concede a goal straight afterwards was a bit of a sucker punch, but we never really panicked.

“I suppose bringing lads in from the bench again probably helped us get over the line in the semi-final. But yeah, it has been a slow burner of a year. And look, probably the experience that we have on the field has got us through games not playing well, so hopefully that might stand for something in the final as well.”

Brady thinks and talks like a coach and that’s something he intends to pursue when he’s finished playing (“it's a hobby of mine, and definitely when I hang up the boots, it'll be something that I’ll be looking to be delving completely into, coaching”). Maybe part of that comes from having played half his career up front and half in defence, seeing all the angles. Does he see himself as a forward or a back?

“It depends who you’re playing against. It's more so nearly about match-ups, you nearly have to tailor the way you're playing as a who your direct opponent is going to be.

“In fairness, Niall Moyna played me there in the Sigerson a good few years before I actually moved back there for club or county. And then in 2019, Ray (Cole) put me there in a few games in the league. And Mickey Graham saw me playing there as well for a couple of games and he tried me out there then for a few games at wing half-back. So I've been stuck there since.

“But I suppose maybe thinking about it again, around to 2010, 11, 12, Jim McGuinness had the stranglehold of football and club teams up and in the country (were playing defensively)… So playing inside then around 2010 to 2015 wasn’t nice so I was happy enough to go to a little bit more extra space.”

One man who isn’t straying from the full-forward line is Jack’s brother James, who returned from Australia and got back into the team only to suffer a broken jaw six weeks ago.

“We had a family wedding, so he came home for the wedding, and was always going to stay around for the football, and the football was the only thing keeping him at home. And look, your heart would break for him missing all of this, but he'll be in and around the squad. But no, I think, I think it's just too much of a risk. And I think Mam has the boots hidden just in case!”

There is mutual respect between Crosserlough and Ramor United, he says.

“At the start of every championship you'd have maybe three or four teams in mind, and whenever you're not playing or training, you try and get to Breffni, or get to whatever venue they're playing in. And Crosserlough is always a team you go and try and see if you could.

It’s just one of those things that that we've never played against them in the final but we have massive respect for them. They're a serious, serious team, even without Paddy Lynch now this year, and they've Dara there back in the forward line and going wherever he needs to go, and James Smith is playing great football.

“They're a very big, athletic, physical team.

“Any time we've played them down over the years, it's always just been football, football, football. And growing up, there would have been a couple of our underage teams, not myself now, but the lads younger, who would have always played against Crosserlough and those games were always very, very good, and helter skelter and pure football.

“So there's never been any bad blood around between the two clubs.

“And I think there's a good, healthy respect there between the two clubs so it should lend to a good open game of football, hopefully.

“They're the form team of the championship, people can say what they like about the draw they've been given or whatever, but you still have to go out and put in the performances and beat these teams. And they've been doing that and hitting serious scores and with the athleticism and everything they have, we're under no illusions, we’re going to be up against it, and going to need a bit of luck on the day, but we're looking forward to it, looking forward to the challenge.”