And then they clicked….
THE Sweeney Memo-rial Cup has rarely been handed out in such circumstances.
A crowd of hundreds clustered around the stand at Fr. Gibbon’s Park,
Claremorris as Tony Walkin punched the air with the old trophy. In the far
corner of the field the scoreline was burnt onto charred timber: 1-21 to
0-6; this had not been a match, it was more of a massacre.
One hundred and thirty five times in all Ballinrobe had left the
dressing-rooms at
As winter transformed to summer they soldiered on, the tag of championship
favourites resting on their shoulders and the voice of Peter Forde calling
instructions in the darkness.
Here, eight months later, it had all come to an extraordinary end.
Ballaghaderreen had been blitzed in the cross-fire as Ballinrobe sprinted
from the dressing-rooms with all guns blazing. Twelve points up after
twenty minutes it was all about statistics from there to the finish line.
Tony Walkin, the team captain, is struggling to make sense of the day. His
team came expecting a battle but ended up with a training run. Their
whirlwind start left heads spinning.
‘Peter [Forde] told us that the first ten minutes, especially, were going
to be crucial,’ he says. ‘We were playing against the breeze, we just put
our heads down and we just kept playing. The two lads at midfield, Sean
[Grimes] and Fergal [O’Loughlin] were just outstanding and in the first ten
or fifteen minutes we just took over. It meant that we were thirteen points
up at half-time as a result. Amazing,’ he ponders aloud.
The consensus is that few senior teams in Mayo would have lived with
Ballinrobe’s display over the first thirty minutes. Their focus, rhythm and
precision was remarkable, as if this one superb performance had been
bottled up all season and had just come spilling out at the right time.
Walkin agrees.
‘We wanted to give a good performance but we didn’t know until we came out
whether we’d be playing with or against the breeze. We were anxious to get
a good start though, just get going. We clicked right throughout the field,
stormed up through the middle and the likes of Adrian Flannery and Aidan
Golden made the space for other guys to come up along the wings. Maurice
Horan, Keith McTigue, Micheal Keane, we all clicked at the right time.’
For a club that wandered blindly for the majority of the 1990s, gazing
enviously at the achievements of others, Sunday stands apart. The County
U-21 ‘A’ title and Intermediate Championship now have their home in
Ballinrobe and there is a crop of genuinely talented, level-headed
individuals. Walkin, 27, appreciates the change in fortune.
‘I’ve been dreaming about this to be honest with you,’ he smiles. ‘I
haven’t captained a Ballinrobe team since I was U-16. To do it today was
fantastic, not just for myself, but for the rest of the players as well.
‘The U-21s have been training since January 1st and the rest of us were
back on the first week of February. I can’t think of another club in the
county that has done the Intermediate and U-21 championships double in the
one year. The U-21 was a great start to the season for us, then we won the
Billy Diskin Cup in Clonbur and that’s due to the effort of everyone that
was involved in this club…It’s been an amazing day.
Sean Grimes has come from the opposite end of the spectrum. Not yet turned
21, the midfielder has won a County U-21 Championship and an All-Ireland
Senior ‘B’ Colleges medal in the past twelve months. Like the majority of
his peers the winning habit has become ingrained; this victory merits a
different satisfaction however.
‘A lot of work has gone in to winning this title,’ he begins. ‘Peter Forde
just reminded us before we went out that we had trained for two hundred
hours altogether and it all boiled down to today, and one hour. It’s been
incredible and the likes of Tony Walkin, the captain, only missed one
training session all year long. He led by example and no better man to pick
up the cup for us.’
The double is now a reality. For weeks it was spoken about with whispers
but now it is something to be savoured. Sean Grimes, struggling to contain
a beaming smile, enjoys the respect it will now bring to the club as a
whole.
‘It’s a dream come true. At the beginning of the year if somebody had said
that we’d win the U-21 and Intermediate titles, I would have laughed. But
when we won the U-21 I just knew that this team, with the likes of Mossy
[Donal Costello], Fergal Costello and Adrian Flannery, they all wanted a
bit of glory and I’m just glad that they all got it. They all deserve it
because they’re a great bunch of lads.’
Photographers are clamouring to take an official, celebratory picture. An
image that will be frozen in time and hung beside the last, great team to
emerge from the south Mayo town. The team of 1979.
Late on Sunday night the talk was of Tommy O’Malley, Jimmy Maughan, the
late Billy Diskin, Michael Flannery and Martin Murphy’s penalty save.
Memories that frame the past. Sean Grimes, as he departs, has a word for
Ballaghaderreen. His sentiments echo of what Ballinrobe have done for 21
years.
‘Yeah, I feel sorry for them. Peter Forde was saying all year that we were
going to click in one game but today we really clicked. Ballaghaderreen
were just unfortunate to be there when we clicked. What can you say to
them? Just keep plugging away.’
