Football

Rory Brennan: Friday night lights shine bright on Trillick success

Tyrone champions Trillick pictured with the O'Neill Cup. Picture by Philip Walsh
Tyrone champions Trillick pictured with the O'Neill Cup. Picture by Philip Walsh Tyrone champions Trillick pictured with the O'Neill Cup. Picture by Philip Walsh

AFTER turning in a defining display to help Trillick claim an eighth star for the back collar of the famous red jersey, Rory Brennan paid tribute to the work that’s been done in the club over almost two decades.

The Reds won five Tyrone titles between 1974 and 1986 during a rich harvest, but tumbled back down the hill for a while and found themselves playing intermediate football in spells.

They won an Ulster intermediate title in 2008 and then reached the Tyrone final again in 2014, where they were well beaten by Dungannon, but bounced back as their new generation came through unexpectedly soon to win the senior title the following year.

On Sunday, they took it home again after that four-year gap. Rory Brennan’s decisive part was in locking down the threat of Peter Harte, which kept Errigal Ciaran to a tally of just 2-4, of which just 1-2 came from play.

It’s a success built on years of hard Friday night graft with the underage, producing a starting team with just three starters over age of 26 and an average age of exactly 25.

“It’s just the culture of Trillick,” said Brennan.

“There was a good tradition back in the ‘80s and I suppose we had a gap there when we didn’t compete.

“But it is testament to men who have put the hard work in at underage level back from when the likes of me and Mattie, Richie were under 10s, and we are reaping the rewards now of the work people are putting in the evenings, the youth on a Friday night, the numbers, it is good to see and it is breeding a good culture.

“Nigel [Seaney] has been a big man in that as well. He came in with Raymond Monteith in 2014 and the disappointment of that Intermediate final, into Division One and we have just gone from strength to strength.

“Tyrone football, as competitive as it is, we missed out on a couple of results. But we are back on top now.”

Ardboe caught them with a late sucker-punch to their hopes early last year but no sooner had the pain of it subsided than they were straight back at it.

“That’s the kind of group (we have). Everyone wants to learn and everyone wants to better themselves and we went away from that Ardboe game last year heartbroken.

“We needed to get back into the gym, back onto the field and put those wrongs right and there’s no better time to start back into the grind.

“We didn’t want to miss out on another chance this year so we knew we had to work towards this year.”

Rory’s brother Lee opting out of county duty midway through 2019 bolstered the quality of Trillick’s training sessions, which for much of the year were conducted with their county trio of Brennan and the Donnelly brothers.

Despite Tyrone having played 22 times this year, with Mattie Donnelly playing all bar 28 minutes of it, Brennan playing in 20 of the games and Richie Donnelly featuring in 17 despite an injury-disrupted campaign, Trillick looked fresh and flying through the club championship.

“Tyrone have been getting to the later stages of the All-Ireland and I suppose Lee, taking a step away from the county side this year, coming back into the set-up gave the players a wee bit of a boost,” said the elder sibling.

“It’s difficult, you want to be playing with your club and you want to be playing at county level too against the best opposition because that brings your own game on. It’s just the way it works out.

“In years gone by, we would have struggled to get results in starred fixtures. Four or five men out of the set-up is a big hit in a club like Trillick.

“Thankfully we have a good culture and boys are going to the gym and working hard at it and we have youth coming through. We cannot underestimate the work they are putting in. Days like this just drives them on.”