Known around the Emerald Isle as a sturdy energetic Gaelic Footballer, Gary Brennan will represent his hurling club in Sunday’s Clare SHC Final vying to win Ballyea’s first ever title in the competitions 130 year existence.
By Jamesy Mc Conigley
Turning plenty of heads after impressive winning performances in this year’s championship campaign, Ballyea have the 6ft 4inches Gary Brennan to thank with fine displays throughout.
After receiving plenty of plaudits, Brennan is redirecting the praise in the direction of his manager, Robbie Hogan, “I personally have a huge amount of respect for him, he’s an easy guy to get along with, he manages the situation very well, a huge amount of us are involved with different teams inter-county or different club football team.” “His patience has paid off this year, it hasn’t been easy in the last couple of years but thankfully we’re in a county final this year.”
2016 saw Fergal Hegarty join the Ballyea backroom team and Brennan is delighted to see the experienced man join Hogan, “Fergal has massive experience playing and also coaching, he’s improved my hurling skills over the last few couple of weeks, simple things but done well.”
After a lengthy season with the Clare Senior Football team, Gary admits he’s enjoying every moment of his busy playing schedule, “It’s been busy but it’s been managed well, when you get to this stage of being in a county final you really don’t mind going training, before the semi-final myself and Kevin Sheehan were walking out onto the pitch, the sun was shining and we were preparing for a county semi-final, I said to him there’s nowhere else you’d rather be”
He illustrated that Ballyea have a burning ambition to reach the business end of the Clare Senior Hurling Championship every year and are happy to be there in 2016 but they must perform on the big stage. “The buzz around the place is great, coming here this evening and passing the church and some of the guys on the 2003 team were out putting up bunting and flags, it just amazing how things have changed over the years, I remember being in the stand that day, soaking wet coming home disappointed but very proud to be a Ballyea man and having the utmost respect for those guys”
Having mentioned how he respected the 2003 guys, Brennan feels that the youngsters must aspire like this team to burst on to the senior team and push the club forward and lift the Canon Hamilton. As a team, he stated that they understand that 2015 beaten finalists Clonlara will be tricky opposition and insured that they won’t be under estimated one bit, “you don’t have to look to far down the list of names on their squad to see the talent they have in their team.”
Brennan was recently nominated for a GAA GPA All Stars Award but he has his mind firmly on getting over Sunday’s opponents, Clonlara on Sunday and will look towards the future when it comes.
When questioned about a routine’s or rituals, he joked that he won’t change much because he hasn’t played in a whole lot of finals, “nothing drastic, work as usual and train as usual, we’re down to train twice before the final maybe one gym season during the week at some stage along the line”
Clare’s senior football captain will try his utmost not to get to caught up on the occasion and over think the match, “Watch a bit of television or read a book, whatever it takes and not to have the game played out to much before hand in my mind.”
The secondary school teacher at St Flannans in Ennis openly admits he doesn’t emotionally know what he will do if they win the Canon Hamilton trophy come Sunday but he reiterated that Ballyea must be optimistic and will mainly concentrated on performing as a team to the best of their ability.