{"id":227436,"date":"2026-01-04T20:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T20:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/227436\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T20:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T20:46:07","slug":"righting-all-ireland-record-motivation-for-st-brigids-says-cunningham-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/227436\/","title":{"rendered":"Righting All-Ireland record motivation for St Brigid\u2019s, says Cunningham \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthony Cunningham has said the pain of 2024 has been a motivating factor for the St Brigid<\/a>\u2019s players after their win over Scotstown<\/a> on Sunday to reach the All-Ireland Senior Club Football<\/a> final against Dingle.<\/p>\n

Glen staged a dramatic late comeback in the final two years ago to snatch victory away from St Brigid\u2019s, denying them what would have been a second Andy Merrigan Cup triumph.<\/p>\n

However, the Roscommon champions are back in another All-Ireland decider after their impressive 1-16 to 1-12 semi-final win over the Monaghan champions.<\/p>\n

\u201cDelighted to be back in the final,\u201d said Cunningham, who was not in charge for the club\u2019s last trip to Croke Park but has since returned for what is his second stint at the helm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this set of players have something to fight for because they probably could have won a final a couple of years ago. That has been foremost in their minds as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a very intelligent and driven group. They were disappointed last year in the county championship, but they really want to put that (All-Ireland final) right. They were in a winning position, albeit a great Conor Glass goal near the end, so they want to try and put that right.\u201d<\/p>\n

St Brigid\u2019s were brilliant in defence on Sunday and that proved to be the bedrock for their semi-final win.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the blocks were outstanding,\u201d added Cunningham. \u201cIt was a tremendous defensive display, but also by our forwards who worked back. That\u2019s the way the game has gone, you have to be able to play as both an attacker and defender now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Limiting Rory Beggan to just one point \u2013 he had scored 0-11 from placed balls in the Ulster final \u2013 was also a key part of St Brigid\u2019s game plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cRory Beggan is an unbelievable player. I said to him there afterwards that it\u2019s brilliant that he won an Ulster (title) with the club. He\u2019s a great player, somebody for young goalies coming up, you\u2019re pushing them to watch how Rory Beggan plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Scotstown’sScotstown\u2019s Donnchadh Connolly, Ryan O’Toole, M\u00edche\u00e1l McCarville and Gavin McPhillips with St Brigid’s Eddie Nolan. Photograph: James Crombie\/Inpho <\/p>\n

St Brigid\u2019s have two injury concerns ahead of the final as Mark Daly was forced off with a knee injury just after the break, while joint captain Brian Stack suffered a nasty fall when battling for possession with Beggan during the second half.<\/p>\n

Stack looked in real trouble but managed to play on, though he was visibly in pain leaving Breffni Park on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he broke his neck, I thought he broke his ribs, I don\u2019t know how he got back up from that,\u201d said Stack\u2019s fellow joint captain Paul McGrath.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen to win the ball from that free and send it in and get a score from it, that just summed up everyone\u2019s performance today. He\u2019s some leader, and that drove everyone on.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was in bits, he couldn\u2019t breathe. I thought there\u2019d be a stretcher out and everything. To get up and get the free from that is just a testament to him as a player and a leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scotstown manager David McCague had no qualms about the outcome but thought the pitch was verging on unplayable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt certainly wasn\u2019t ideal and it was very hard in places. But look, it was the same for both teams so that\u2019s not an excuse for us not to win the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m involved in Ulster colleges football and I\u2019d say if that was a college game today and there wasn\u2019t TV and pressure to get the game played, it may not have gone ahead. But it did go ahead and we lost and the best team won.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Cunningham has said the pain of 2024 has been a motivating factor for the St Brigid\u2019s players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49721,61,60,42187,43,90225],"class_list":["post-227436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-gaa-club-football-championship","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-monaghan-gaa","tag-news","tag-roscommon-gaa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}