WHEN Tyrone blew Dublin out of the water in 2008, Alan Brogan had doubt in his mind for the first time in his life.
Coming from the family he did, with his famous All-Ireland winning father Bernard and uncle Jim, he believed that winning an All-Ireland was just his destiny.
But seven years on from his championship debut and having taken small steps forward, Dublin found themselves landed back on their arse by the Red Hands’ three-goal blitz.
Brogan had tweaked his hamstring in the weak of the game and tore it going for the first ball in Croke Park. In his absence, Dublin hardly struck a blow.
“We’d put four, five, six years into that game,” he recalls in his Laochra Gael programme, which will be broadcast on TG4 at 5.30pm today.
In spite of all the county’s difficulties with maximising their GAA potential, they’d still won at least one All-Ireland every decade since the 1940s.
But when Brogan was one of the startled earwigs the year after, the record that had been the source of his youthful confidence ended.
In that part of his career, “he carried that forward line a lot on his shoulders” as Paul Caffrey puts it.
By the time his playing days ended, he’d have three Celtic Crosses in his back pocket. And while bad timing dictated that the last two of them were won off the bench, his influence on breaking their 16-year duck in 2011 cannot be overstated.
A wing-back on his first appearance in Croke Park as a minor – on which he scored a goal anyway – he was converted into a forward after Tommy Lyons threw him in for a challenge game against Clare.
His reputation was forged as a finisher. The left foot was as good as the right and his trademark skidding stop to switch from one to the other was among his most deadly weapons.
The family’s influence grew as Bernard broke through as the scoring talisman, and by 2011, with the hair starting to grey a touch, Alan was operating as their playmaker at centre-forward.
“My priorities probably changed a little bit. Setting up scores became a lot more important… That was a huge change in my mindset.”
Dublin won the All-Ireland and Alan Brogan would win Footballer of the Year. He deserved for history to record him leaving such a mark on a team that has gone on to achieve incredible glories.
A bad groin injury suffered in the Leinster final against Meath the following year not only limited him to ten broken minutes in the All-Ireland semi-final loss to Mayo, but “cost me most of 2013 as well, I had to go to the UK to get it operated on”.
The role of unused sub in the 2013 loss and then getting beaten by Donegal in 2014, when he was considering calling time, was no way to end.
He got only the final few minutes of the 2015 final but the final point of his final game summed him up. Composure to do the right thing, and the ability to execute it in the pouring rain off his weaker left foot.
That’s how Alan Brogan will be remembered.
* Laochra Gael, Alan Brogan will be shown on TG4 today at 5.30pm.
