AIB GAA Club Preview: St Vincent’s hoping their Messi can inspire victory over Corofin

‘Diarmuid is playing super stuff at the moment. He’s in the form of his life really. I think he works far harder than Messi in fairness. He (Messi) scored two but he actually didn’t run anywhere! Iniesta, Suarez, those type of guys worked particularly well, but Messi just seems to pick up the loose ends at the end.’

There is certainly no room for passengers in the St Vincent’s set up as they look to book their place in an another AIB GAA All-Ireland club final. The Dublin champions steamrolled Rhode of Offaly in their provincial decider and face Corofin of Galway this Saturday for a place in Croke Park on St Patrick’s Day. The Galway side are no strangers to this stage of the competition themselves, and Brennan is well aware of the threat of the Connacht outfit.

‘They are an extremely successful team, since ’91 they have won 13 Galway titles so they are winning one every two years. They have won six Connacht titles and did back-to-back county there as well, the same as ourselves, so they have a lot of experienced guys and I’d see a lot of similarities to ourselves. They have players like Gary Sice, Kieran Fitzgerald and two really strong guys at midfield so they are an extremely talented team. In terms of looking at odds and stuff, it’s certainly not something that bothers us, we just try to focus on ourselves.’

The race for All-Ireland club glory means Brennan and Connolly are away from the Dublin set up at the moment as they negotiate early season training.  The idea that the Vincent’s players will be playing catch up in terms of fitness and strength and conditioning is not something Brennan believes in. He feels the gap in terms of preparing teams for the top end of the club championship and inter county is getting narrower all the time, especially since their first All-Ireland club title of the modern era in 2008.

‘I probably wasn’t aware enough back then to give you a truthful answer but I would certainly have noticed an uptake in the amount of training going into the club. Certainly with ourselves I would say that, in my experience, we are only two or three years behind Dublin in terms of what’s being done. The only difference might be the skill level or intensity level that you get with inter-county. But the amount of training you are putting in, video sessions, tactical sessions and stuff like that is all increasing.’

The Leinster champions are looking to make a piece of history by claiming back to back All-ireland titles this season. Crossmaglen Rangers are the only side in the modern game to have achieved the double, but for Brennan and Vincent’s their focus is only on this Saturday’s game in Tullamore.

‘People have been talking to us about that and again, as a player, you try not to think about that. Certainly in our minds we are not defending anything. You can’t re-win the 2014 St Patrick’s Day club final, you can only win this one. This is the one that’s up for grabs. So we are pretty much always focused on what’s in front of us, which is Corofin in the semi-final.’

AIB-GAA All-Ireland senior club football semi final St Vincent’s V Corofin O’Connor Park 2pm

AIB-GAA All-Ireland club senior football semi final Austin Stacks V Slaughneil 4pm O’Moore park Portlaoise

The other semi final clash sees Austin Stacks face Slaughtneil on Sunday in Portlaoise. The game was initially due to be played on the Saturday as part of a club double-header but a wedding in the Derry club means they will now take to the field a day later against their Munster opponents.

Sunday’s game is new territory for both sides,with the ‘Stacks winning a first Munster title since the mid 1970s in December, while Slaughtneil have never been outside of Ulster before.  The Munster champions got a massive fright from The Nire in their provincial final with the concession of very soft scores early on. However they fought back and just edged their Waterford opponents by 3-5 to 2-4. They will have to rack up a much higher score on Sunday if they are to reach Croke Park next month.

The Ulster champions are very economical in possession and their final winning score against Omagh was a masterclass in patience.

With just seconds left they worked the ball from their own 14-yard line all the way to the hands of Christopher Bradley who slotted home the winner to inflict a cruel defeat on the Tyrone outfit. They are a very well balanced side and proved in that provincal decider that they will play open attacking football if given the chance.

Kieran Donaghy is the obvious player to observe over the course of the hour but ‘Stacks proved in the Munster final that he’s not totally central to how they play or the basis for all their scores. This could be the most fascinating game of the weekend across both hurling and football. It would be no surprise if it is  forced into extra time, nor even a replay.

 

The FootballJOE quiz: Were you paying attention? – episode 10