Brian Stack isn’t abashed at acknowledging 2023 as “probably...my best year so far”, but then again it’s too obvious to hide. With Roscommon he had a high-achieving championship during which he marked a succession of top forwards and ended up nominated for an All Star.
The year ended with a dominant performance at full back in the AIB Connacht club final, putting the clamps on Gary Sice, who had been the key forward for favourites Corofin. He maintained the trajectory into 2024 as St Brigid’s qualified for a first All-Ireland final since the club became Roscommon’s only winners in 2013. Now just one fixture away from emulating that generation, Stack remembers the impact of the win on a 15-year-old whose brother Ronan is the only player left from that team.
“When I was that age I was playing a few sports and it kind of made my mind up, really, what sport I was going to concentrate on, and when you see your own club doing it you definitely can’t help but think that could be me one day.”
He adds that realising such ambitions has not been a clockwork process but knows that the team has given itself a great shot at doing just that.
Competing sports are part of the Kiltoom landscape and the young Stack would have had his choice. His brother Ronan played soccer with Athlone and the traffic between the GAA and rugby is regular. Connacht players Jack Carty and the Murray brothers Niall and Darragh played football with Brigid’s whereas team wing back Ruaidhri Fallon made the return journey in November 2022, having played full back in the AIL for Buccaneers.
The past also provides inspiration in adversity. In 2013 Brigid’s defeated All-Ireland champions Crossmaglen in the semi-final and took on Dublin champions Ballymun Kickhams in the final. Despite conceding a barrage of early scores, including a goal by Dean Rock who retired from intercounty football this week, to trail by eight in the opening 10 minutes, the Roscommon champions eventually recovered and Frankie Dolan landed the winning score in the dying seconds.
An attitude that has seen the relative unknown opposition beyond the county as opportunity as much as threat was marked against Corofin. The Galway champions were hot favourites to resume winning All-Irelands after a four-year hiatus. Their tactical downfall was outlined by Stack after the Connacht final.
“I was confident we’d be there or thereabouts. I think we got our game plan down to a T, stop their kicking game and push up on them in the middle third. We put them under real pressure and also attacked well. I’m delighted.”
Speaking more recently at an AIB promotional event, he detailed his own preparations for taking care of opponents.
“I watch a lot of football outside of my own game, so I’d see a lot of players playing. And then when you’re leading into a game and you know you’re going to be marking someone, you obviously watch a bit of them. But I don’t like to have too much because you can’t really get a sense of what it’s going to be like until you’re out there, but, yeah, a good bit goes into it from a team perspective and a personal perspective.”
Described by club manager Jerome Stack – curiously, no relation although both he and Brian and Ronan’s father are from Listowel – as “an immense footballer,” Brian Stack has also demonstrated versatility, flipping between juvenile full back and wing and corner forward in minor days, before being restored to the full back line when Anthony Cunningham took over the Roscommon seniors. “It’s a lot more glamorous up the field, I suppose,” he says “but the way the game has gone, 15 attack and 15 defend, you can actually do an awful lot of attacking from full-back. Look at the likes of Tom O’Sullivan or Sean Kelly – they really influence the game going forward.”
On Sunday he takes his season’s hot streak to Croke Park to face Ulster champions Watty Graham’s Glen, who lost last year’s final. The two most recent champions both lost the previous final but it’s not exactly a formula – as the county could painfully reflect given previous Roscommon standard bearers Clann na nGael lost four All-Ireland finals in succession.
Gradually the opportunity has crept up on Brian Stack. He hasn’t forced it but understands that the time has arrived. “Most players think that it could happen or dream of it happening. It’s not as if I start every year writing down on a page that I want to get to a club All-Ireland and win it. But, look, you try to win every game that’s in front of your nose and that’s brought us this far so far, so, yeah, we’re entitled to think about it now.”
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