Kerry v Mayo: Keith Duggan talks to Ballina's Ger Brady, the fulcrum of the Mayo team's attack.
When Ger Brady broke into the Mayo team last February, he was regarded as one of the chief successes of the comprehensive trials put in place by the new management. But he was not exactly a "find".
Followers of Ballina Stephenites were well acquainted with Brady's bustling, straight-line attacking game, and over the winter he brought a new dimension to Mayo's attack. He breaks defences open by running straight at them, he kicks points and has a low centre of gravity - or as one connoisseur delicately put it, "that Kenny Dalgleish arse about him" - that makes him hard to knock off the ball.
But Brady was wearing the number 11 jersey and when Ciarán McDonald made his return, in the league semi-final defeat against Galway, he was brought on for Brady. Assumptions that Brady's spell would end there and then were wrong. Management kept faith with the Ballina man, McDonald operating as a roving forward and Brady very much the fulcrum of the attack.
It was his magnificent point into the Hill end against Dublin that started Mayo's famous second-half rally and he overshadowed Bryan Cullen, Dublin's best player in the championship, all afternoon.
"It is a cliché but I am just happy to be playing on the team," Brady says now. "Every time we play a championship game, there are 20 guys playing. And there are guys breathing down your neck, pushing you all the time, and it gets you focused. But Ciarán Mac, he is one of those players you want to play with. Ciarán is a great guy; everyone gets on really well with him. He is one of those guys who turns up to training with a smile. And he is misunderstood a lot of the time. But I am just delighted to be on the same team as a guy with his talent."
Brady is no Johnny-come-lately, having won provincial minor medals with Connacht a decade ago and turning in eye-catching displays at club level. But his talent for rugby led to an offer of a £10,000 contract with the Connacht branch of the IRFU in 1999. Brady had caught the eye playing for Ireland at under-19 and was about to take up studies in Galway IT.
It was an offer too tempting to reject and Brady's conversion was regularly given as an example of how professional rugby posed a threat to Gaelic games.
But Brady never completely quit football, and he shone throughout Ballina Stephenites' 2004 All-Ireland club championship winning season. Now he is wearing the Mayo colours again.
His rise to prominence at the age of 26, along with the return of his brother David and the flashes of class by the 32-year-old Kevin O'Neill, are all vindication of the endless auditions held by Mickey Moran and John Morrison last winter.
Brady believes his experiences in rugby have helped him with Gaelic football: "Training with a guy like Eric Elwood, who would be the first to arrive and the last to leave - that teaches you a lot. He would kick and kick rugby balls until the cows come home. And he had been at the top of his sport so he made me realise what it takes to try and get to the top of your sport.
"The training is very different. The intensity is there and GAA has really come on in terms of the science, rehydration tests and all the rest. If you come in below the level required, you are not going to have the success that you want."
He attributes his sporting versatility to his primary-school teacher Hugh Lynn. "He immersed us in rugby, soccer, basketball, Gaelic, tennis, everything. Like, Gavin Duffy went to the same primary school, Willie Ruane, Diane O'Hore. You could spend 10 minutes listing people. But it was because we were exposed to it as such a young age that we got that love for sport."
As a sports coach, Brady has retained an interest in all codes. But watching the highs and lows of the career of his brother David with Mayo and simply living in the county mean he is well acquainted with the perils of preparing for an All-Ireland final. But he believes this year has been different.
"We have gone down the road of being in All-Ireland finals with Mayo in the past. And people are used to that initial euphoria of just being there. You know, the sheep are left alone in terms of painting them and that kind of stuff. A couple of years ago, there was crazy stuff going on. I mean, if you didn't know better you would say these guys are . . . odd. But people have settled down a bit now.
"And perhaps people are afraid of getting too wound up about the game and then, if things don't go well, dealing with the disappointment. The higher you build yourself up, the harder the fall. So they are being cagey. And that is a help to us in a sense so we can prepare the best we can. And it is up us when we get on the pitch. It is our job then."
