He was always one of those guys you just felt was about to take off.
ll the elements were there. Physique. Talent. Work-rate. Willingness. You’d see them all, in flashes here and there.
Even just go back to the Munster final with Courcey Rovers. He was decent. More than decent really, he was good. It was just that ten or fifteen percent off his ultimate potential.
He’d do something brilliant – field a great ball – and then maybe the pass wouldn’t go to hand and it’d feel just a little a bit disheartening.
Of course, he'd played many fine games before, been influential in games, but Sunday was of a different order. He bossed it. He was just about the best player on the park.
It was the day when Jordan Brick got closest to his full potential than we’ve seen him do before. He was everywhere.
More than anything else the single most impressive thing about the performance he gave was that it didn’t ebb and flow with the fortunes of his team.
Even when Kilmoyley weren’t at their best, Brick was to the fore, carrying the fight to Banagher, acting as outlet time and again, hand in the air, plucking possession ahead of his man, breaking it, scrapping for it and, yes, using it effectively.
By the end of the game he’d fired four points from play – his final point in the fourth quarter a particular peach and he knew it too, more so he knew what it meant.
Turning to his team mates – and the crowd – with fist raised in the air, he knew what it represented.
Kilmoyley on their way to the All Ireland final, a seven point advantage, with the game in injury time, this one was done.
There were times in the game – particularly in the third quarter – that thoughts that Kilmoyley would find themselves in such a commanding position would have seemed almost fanciful.
Kilmoyley, though, just don't think that way. Three points down might have led to a few jitters in the stand – and believe us there were – but on the pitch, the players were able to regain composure and push for the line.
Thanks in no small part to the performance of Brick, typically quite modest about his performance on the weekend.
“Look, I suppose, John B [O’Halloran] was hitting me with a few balls that I was catching and a couple of balls in hand as well.
“It’s nice to get those ones in early and settle yourself a small bit for games like these. I just took it on from there then.”
The wing-forward – who was named at 13 by the Kilmoyley management team – certainly gave it his all.
As he stood on the pitch chatting, while surrounded by well-wishers, his calves began to cramp. Not that he was complaining, not with Kilmoyley in an All Ireland final.
Still he knows there’s more to come from this Kilmoyley side after Banagher made life more than difficult for the Naomh Páirc Erc outfit.
“We were poor,” he admits.
"Ten minutes into the second half we settled ourselves down a small bit. Banagher worked very hard, worked their socks off for forty minutes and we finally got ourselves into back it and fellas started getting going again.
"[Daniel] Collins got going again with a couple of frees to get us going then again a bit more. I thought the effort by us was excellent as usual, but we just had to get it going. Tough day out.
“I think going into the Munster games we kind of had a fair idea of the teams we were going to be playing. We came into this game blind-sided.
"I know John [Meyler] would look into the teams a lot more than we would, three or four times in a week. I suppose they were probably the same. It's great, it’s great.”
The Kilmoyley support in attendance yet again raised the roof and, one suspects, gave a boost to the players out on the pitch.
“Unbelievable,” Brick says without skipping a beat.
“All you have to do is look over to the stand there today. I know it was kind of cut in half between the two teams, but the support was fantastic.
"Nobody left behind. It’d be the right time to go robbing houses in Kilmoyley! But no for three and-a-half hours up the road the support is fantastic, on a Sunday evening it's smashing.
"I’m sure we’ll have the same crowd going to Croker as well making it very nice.”
Even the mention of the word Croker is enough to put the hairs on the back of your neck standing as a supporter. To actually play there, though, in an All Ireland final no less, well that’s just different gravy entirely.
“It might never again happen to us. We have to take it in your stride and really go for it,” Brick says.
“I’ve never been there. Never got to go there. It's the right time. I'm getting old now! I was up there from the outside looking in, but I never set foot on the pitch.
"It’s a lovely feeling, a lovely thought. It’s only really going to feel like it when you’re on the pitch.”
About the only dark spot on a history-making day for Kilmoyley was the potential loss of Adrian Royle for the final.
The big full-forward was hugely influential on Sunday getting his hands on a lot of ball, or breaking it down to colleagues at the very least. He was the tip of the spear.
It would be a significant blow if he wasn’t available for Saturday week in Croke Park. More than that though it would be disappointing on a personal level for the hugely popular hurler, both inside and outside of the squad.
“It’s not like him to do something like that,” Brick says ruefully when asked about his comrade in arms..
"It’s not in him, he’s not a dirty player by any means. I just feel a bit sorry for him now.”
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that for Royle. In the, meantime, though there’s work to be done for a Kilmoyley team who have the potential to play, much, much better.
To beat Naas in an All Ireland final we suspect they’ll have to too you know. They know it too. Of course they do.
They’ll keep on doing as they've been doing all year long and if they need a little extra inspiration they can just look at Jordan Brick’s performance and perseverance to know that in this game this sky's the limit.
