Local heroes
Saturday December 08 2007
YOU CAN'T help admiring Shane Briggs' honesty.
Does he ever get fed up, you wonder, of people patronising Waterford footballers like himself.
They can't win a match without the words 'SHOCK HORROR!' plastered across the sports pages, even though the county has provided finalists for the last three AIB Munster club finals, including tomorrow's David and Goliath clash between his side Ballinacourty and Nemo Rangers.
"Yeah, it absolutely kills me," he groans. "Two years ago, when we scored eight goals against Carlow in the Tommy Murphy Cup, everyone was texting me, asking me if it was a misprint on Aertel.
"I played Sigerson Cup for years for UL (University of Limerick) and even there some of the lads would say, 'Jesus, I never knew you even had a senior football team in Waterford!'
Capitulating
They beat Clare in this year's Munster championship before capitulating to Kerry, and will naturally always play second-fiddle to the county's adored hurlers. Yet the irony is that Briggs and all of his Ballinacourty team mates are handy hurlers. He's a decent rugby player too, lining out occasionally at centre for Clonmel.
But Abbeyside/Ballinacourty's strong dual mandate means Briggs' focus is elsewhere. Fourteen of their footballer starters were in the club's senior hurling team (Abbeyside) who contested this year's Waterford SHC semi-finals where they were beaten by Ballyduff, who went on to win the county title.
"Gut-wrenching" is Briggs' summary of the injury-time free that went in off the post to beat them. "The papers described it as 'a wonder-goal' but he actually mis-hit it," he claims. "We were distraught after, but we had to go out and play a football quarter-final a week later against Clashmore. We were terrible and won by a point in injury-time and it's fair to say we were lucky to survive."
Anyone in any doubt as to how seriously football is taken in West Waterford should accompany Briggs (26), a PE teacher, to school in St Declan's, Kilmacthomas some day.
"A lot of our kids are from Stradbally and for the last four years I've been getting it in the ear, so it is nice to be able to finally give it back," he laughs.
Nearby is The Nire, last year's county champions whom Ballinacourty finally beat in this year's SFC semi-finals. "In fairness they lost Shane Walsh (county dual star) and his brother Paul to injury during it, but we won by three and I think after that we started to believe in ourselves," says Briggs.
They then beat Ardmore to win their first senior title since 1981 but the biggest 'SHOCK HORROR!' headlines of all came when they beat Kerry side Kilcummin (admittedly not the county champions) in Munster's first round. At 7/1 in the bookies they made a killing for their two busloads of supporters who are headed back to Killarney tomorrow.
"There was absolutely no pressure on us and it's the same this weekend," Briggs says.
"One paper had an article recently debating whether Nemo or Crossmaglen are the greatest club team ever. They've won 7 All-Irelands and we've just won one Waterford title in 26 years, that's the obvious difference."
But winning in Kerry, he admits, was a massive boost. "We're not cocky or anything but certainly winning in Killarney was about gaining respect we've seen how close Waterford teams went in the last two Munster club finals."
"Stradbally should have beaten Kilmurry-Ibrickane in 2004 and The Nire should definitely have beaten Dr Crokes last year
"Their performances gives us fantastic encouragement but the bottom line is that's gone now, no one can win this one for us but ourselves."
- Gaelic Games
