Selectors in glowing tribute to resilience of Ferbane players who are learning at school of hard knocks

FERBANE have suffered some devastating hard knocks since bridging a 25 year gap when winning the Senior Football Championship in 2019.

Their win over Rhode that day was greeted with an inevitable release of joy in one of Offaly's most loyal and traditional footballing strongholds and they looked set for a new era of bountiful success. Instead, they find themselves searching desperately for a second one five years down the road – they have suffered two agonising semi-final defeats on penalties to Tullamore and Rhode while they lost to Tullamore in last year's final.

With several dual players and Belmont hurlers also enduring some heartbreaking semi-final losses in the same time span, it has not been an easy time.

Willie Farrell was a first time selector last year and he said:

“For me it was my first time involved with the team but it was harder for the players, a lot of them because every year we're knocking on the door since we won in 2019 and penalty shoot outs and things like that was devastating and to get to the final and then last year it was 'on the day'. It was brutal [day for playing football] and now, it was the same for both teams.”

The other selector under manager Ger Rafferty, Brian Keenaghan paid a glowing tribute to the players for their resilience.

“Yeah, they're not easy won and the last four or five years proves that. How the players themselves keep coming back amazes me, the resilience that they have. To lose two semi-finals on penalties is a cruel way to lose but to come back last year, get to the county final, come back this year, get to the county final again, and all the time the vast majority of them playing hurling and having hard knocks in the hurling as well.

“You have to be here to see the resilience, to believe it, because they consistently keep coming back, even this year, the hurling wasn't going well one week they'd be back down here the next week for the football. They go back up hurling the next week and they got beaten in a couple of matches which they could have won and that would be a different story. But they just keep coming back, coming back and coming back. I genuinely don't know how they do it.”

Keenaghan elabourated:

“They just keep coming and they just keep working harder and harder and harder. And the effort these boys are putting in, the same as Tullamore and Rhode, every other team, every player now at senior level, is phenomenal. We have lads travelling five hours for training, three nights a week. They never open their mouth about it, they just get on with it and just do it. To keep coming back, I suppose you'd be tempted to say they deserve another county title out of it but you don't deserve anything in football, everything you get you earn.”

Belmont hurlers entered their campaign this year with high hopes after winning the league but ended up having to survive a relegation play off with Tullamore. Farrell admitted:

“Yeah, at the start of the year you'd maybe be saying the footballers would be getting to a semi-final and the hurlers would be thinking the same with the calibre of players they have but it was blow after blow for them and to be fair to them they got through the Tullamore match to keep them senior. They kept their 100% dedication here to our side of it, they were fully focused all along. Some of our games didn't go to plan at the start but it's coming right now at the right time.”

The football format this year with every team qualifying for quarter-finals meant that teams could afford to relax in group stages and Keenaghan was shocked at the system.

“I think the same as everybody else, everybody was a bit dumbfounded by it to be totally honest. This thing of all teams coming out of the group – I thought they learned a lesson in 2009 with the hurling when certain teams said they used the group games just to blood in lads. How anybody thinks it's a good idea, I don't know. It's worked out the way it worked out this year. We had decent enough quarter-finals out of it but you'd have to wonder how many people stayed at home for those games and didn't bother going to them, thinking that teams weren't going to put their best foot forward.

“Having said that, Ferbane put our best foot forward. Shamrocks beat us in the first round and it wasn't because we were complacent, it was because Shamrocks were the better team on the night. But that format to me, makes no sense. How you can have three rounds of championship football with little to no consequences for anybody doesn't make sense. The thing is going to change next year, likely back to 10 teams, and it'll do away with that format again. But for this year, whatever format was put in front of you, you had to play.”

He was pushed about their first round loss to Shamrocks.

“I don't think anybody in Ferbane was complacent or it was in the back of our mind that we're in a quarter-final anyway. I genuinely don't think that. I think we went to Shamrocks in the first round of the championship and we didn't play well and Shamrocks played very well and Shamrocks deserved their win on the night. If we got anything out of that it probably would have been robbery. I don't think that result was anything to do with the format of the championship.”

Ferbane, however, have noticeably lifted things since the knockout stages. Farrell agreed:

“Yeah, I suppose it was coming together better as the year went on. We were missing lads with injuries there at the start and it's coming together nicely and hopefully it'll get a bit better the next day.”

Keenaghan is far from certain that Belmont's early demise helped the footballers.

“I don't know. We were able to concentrate on football for the last week because there was a relegation play-off in the hurling that the lads did very well to get over. Last year was the very same situation, we had the two weeks coming up to the county final purely for football. I don't know if it a massive advantage or not. I suppose we'll know on Sunday week. But it does mean that we can plan the next two weeks with no thought for anything else apart from the county final. The intermediate footballers are finished, the hurlers and finished, the junior hurlers are out this weekend, fair enough, apart from that we can work towards the county final exactly as we please. But that was the same last year.”

He agreed that they are able to do less football work during much of the season than some of their big rivals because of hurling – Tullamore have dual players but a much smaller number than Ferbane.

“Sometimes it can be challenging but in fairness to Ger Rafferty and Spud Murphy there this year they were constantly on the phone to each other. And for the last four or five years Ferbane and Belmont were working very well together. We're trying to manage players as opposed to kill them training here, there and everywhere. We have a football week, we have a hurling week, we have dual sessions. Part of you will say if we had them full time every week, nothing else – I think Rhode are the only team that have that. Tullamore have hurlers, they have rugby, they have soccer, they have everything and anything. So it can be difficult at times, but in fairness to the lads, anything that they are asked to do, they do.

“If they are asked to come down here five nights a week they'd do that. The two clubs are working well together. So I don't think the clubs can do any more for it. We are a dual club, always have been, down through the years and personally I'd hate to see the hurling or the football going down. You prefer to see both teams doing well because momentum is a great thing too and if you go back to 2019 when it was won there was massive momentum, there was the semi-final of the hurling, there was the county final in the football. And you can't buy momentum, having the hurlers doing well one week and then going out and doing well in the football and you get on a roll. Unfortunately sometimes one side of it doesn't go too well but then players have that release from that side of it to come back down to the football if that's going well. Fair enough, we might be working on 40% less than the likes of Rhode but I still think it's working very well.”

The pooling of resources with Belmont is there to stay according to Keenaghan.

“It came about because Ferbane-Belmont amalgamated in 1986 and within 10 years the young lads that had played together for Ferbane-Belmont were getting to adult and that was a big driving force behind it at the time. It'll never go back. We're one parish. I don't ever see a situation ever again where Ferbane would have a hurling team playing against Belmont or Belmont would have a football team playing against Ferbane. We're too integrated, it is all one parish and at the end of the day everyone in Ferbane will support Belmont and everyone in Belmont will support Ferbane.”

Farrell agreed: “I suppose it's all one parish and it probably at the time when it came about was that Ferbane disbanded their hurling club and everybody transfers to Belmont and vice versa for football, it maintained an identity because Belmont would have been the stronger on the hurling side of things and Ferbane stronger on the football. I don't think it matters what you're called, the same people are going out and playing for both clubs. We have 10 or 12 lads playing senior football and senior hurling. And I think in itself that's an achievement. Whether it's called Belmont or Ferbane or Ferbane-Belmont, or Wheery, it doesn't matter.”

Keenaghan elabourated: “We're both dependent on each other. But even when I say that, it's like we're two separate entities. But we're one parish. At the end of the day we're one parish. Shamrocks have Rahan and Mucklagh and they don't see each other as Rahan and Mucklagh, they see each other as Shamrocks. And at this stage I don't think anybody sees any difference between Ferbane and Belmont. It's just a different name, it's the same players, it's the same people supporting them.”

The duo are under no illusions about how difficult Tullamore will be to beat.

Keenaghan: Sometimes I look at them and thank God I'm not playing any more. You're asking me how hard it is to play against them. It's the lads who will tell you hard it is. I know how hard it is to watch them once they get ahead and shut down the game but that's a strength that they have and they work to their strengths. They have a very, very, very talented team. This is their fifth county final in a row. I talked about our lads coming back, we lost and came back and won one, Tullamore lost and came back and won one, so they have that resilience as well. You have to admire them for that. How to beat them?They haven't been beaten since the county final two years ago. They didn't get beaten last year by anybody, they didn't get beaten this year so far and that's a fair run to be on but somebody has to stop it sometime. And hopefully it'll be us.”

He knows people are talking about Tullamore not winning two in a row since 1926.

“I know, and people talk about that but I don't think, from talking to a few of the Tullamore lads, that it's eating into them. It's 1926, nearly 100 years ago, so I don't think the Tullamore lads are going to be thinking that way. I think the Tullamore lads are just going to be fully focused on beating us Sunday week and we're going to have to be at our very best to turn them over.”

They both agreed that this Ferbane squad do need to win a second title.

Farrell: “For this bunch of players it's very important. They put in so much effort and work.”

Keenaghan: “I spoke earlier about the resilience in these lads and it's amazing and we've a few young lads coming on there, the likes of Brian Carroll and Conor Dunican, and John Dunican getting a chance at senior this year. We have loads of young lads there that are looking at these lads that have been around for the last 10 or 15 years. If we could get the second one I think it would spur them on as well, because the lads that are there are not going to last for ever. There's no doubt about that. But the young lads that are coming along are seeing the standards that have been set by the lads and you can't beat winning, you just can't. They're used to winning at underage and things like that but to get a senior title, it can only spur those lads on and maybe drive Ferbane on a bit more.”

Cian Johnson is starting this year after being more of an impact last year. Once Offaly's most exciting emerging forward talent, Johnson is vice captain this year and asked was it a deliberate ploy to give him this responsibility, Keenaghan said:

“He's vice captain and it's down to the work that Cian himself put in. Cian spent the winter getting himself right. In fairness to him last year he had a couple of niggly injuries, he had a groin at him, he had this at him, he'd come back and something else would go on him and in fairness to him, you'd probably have to give him his due for being even able to tog out, for being able to play the second half of a county final. And he showed in the second half of that county final the player that he is but the amount of work that Cian put in over the winter was phenomenal and that's why he's vice captain as opposed to giving him the vice captaincy to try and get him going, it's actually the opposite. Cian came back now after putting in massive work and he's worked hard all year and that's what came before the captaincy side of things. Cian's an outstanding talent and maybe is a marked man every time we go out and I don't mean that in a bad way. We'd be marking somebody if they were that good on the other teams. So we'll have to see how he gets on in the county final. Cian's a bit like Brendie Lowry, he could be quiet for 55 minutes and win the game for you. But you have to admire the work that Cian put in all winter because it was serious.”

Keenaghan agreed that they have quality forwards and they will always give them a chance.

“We always feel we have a chance. Now David Nally looks like he might be out for six weeks, it's not looking good for David. But it does leave us with those other forwards but the forwards won't win the game. Somebody has to give them the ball. The backs – our backline this year has been very strong. Midfield is coming good at the right time, and those forwards... they have to played into the game as well, they just can't just do it on their own. We always feel we have a chance and everything we do for the next two weeks will be geared towards giving us the best chance to get some sort of result.”

Tullamore and Ferbane have been clearly the best two teams in the championship this year.

Farrell said: “Possibly, probably, Tullamore, when you name out the players, the talent is there alright, it takes 18 players to win a match nowadays and the lads that come on from the bench are as important as the lads that are playing. It'll be the same in the county final.”