Konrad’s crew are simply sticking to the process

Breaffy manager Konrad Coghill knows better than most what it is like to lift a county title with his home club.

A part of Breaffy’s intermediate-winning team in 2004 as a player, he now stands one game away from leading the club as manager to a first-ever Moclair Cup and as far as he is concerned, bar the opening day defeat to their opponents in next Sunday’s final, Ballina Stephenites, everything has gone according to plan – so far.

“It has proved successful to date. We set out our stall against Ballina, albeit we came up short by a point. But we knew on the basis of our performance that day that if we built on that there was an opportunity to move on in this championship and that’s what we did.

“Balla and Mayo Gaels proved two difficult, difficult games and they always are, the group games. It’s nice just to get out of the group and once we did that, we felt we had 50% of the work done.” 

That loss to Ballina meant the matches against Balla and Mayo Gaels were effectively knockout games. That’s tough enough in any group stage of the championship but playing against your neighbours makes it all the more challenging, particularly as it was the second year in-a-row to come up against Balla in the group.

“If we lose that game, there’s a chance we were gone. Balla were in the same position, they had lost to Mayo Gaels, they had to win. I’d always find them very nervy games where anything can happen, but we got through them. I expected us to and we did.

“We had enough coming down the final stretch. We had enough against Balla and Mayo Gaels and that’s no disrespect to those two teams, absolutely none. I felt we were better on the two days.” 

Breaffy announced themselves as contenders with a stunning win over Westport in the quarter-finals before overcoming another close rival Castlebar Mitchels in the semi-final. Coghill, however, felt his team were more than capable of doing so before ever a ball was kicked.

“We had a huge game against Westport which we felt we could give a crack. I’ve always said that genuinely going to Islandeady that day, there was something in us and I was proven right and again the last day against Castlebar, another rollercoaster of a game and we came out the right side of it.

“There’s no question everyone outside the bubble would see that as an upset. [Westport] are a fantastic outfit. They were beaten in the league final, by Castlebar, their first all year; racked up huge, huge scores. But when we went to Islandeady that day, we went to have a right pop at them because we had a huge volume of work done and we were very confident in our group. We got across the line, we weren’t surprised. We were happy and I know it created huge media headlines to say the least!” 

Coghill added: “There’s always an edge (with Mitchels) and they’re probably our closest rivals. We share the same parish but again, us beating Castlebar was nothing more than a means and part of a process to get to a final. Had that game been against anyone else, we would have been as happy beating them as we would beating Castlebar because it meant we got back into a county final. It was part of the process that game.” 

Much of Breaffy’s under-the-radar run in championship has stemmed from an indifferent run of form in the Mayo senior football league this season. They failed to make the quarter-finals but players such as Davitt Neary, Jack Livingstone, Conor Melly and David Livingstone came on leaps and bounds. Coupled with the return of county players Aidan O’Shea and Matthew Ruane and a gruelling training block, Breaffy were primed and ready for championship away from the spotlight while the likes of Knockmore, Westport and Castlebar Mitchels played knockout league football.

“Davitt is a fantastic player. Two other players who came in are David Livingstone and Conor Melly. They hadn’t played a lot at that level but got a full, full league under their belt. It was a tough few games but league football is for development in my view,” said Coghill.

“Jack’s a fantastic guy and goalkeeper, does his job calmly and quietly. He’s one of those guys you’d hardly notice around the place. He comes in and does his job effectively.

“You want to retain your status 100% at all costs but we got an opportunity to give guys ample time on the pitch and they reaped the reward come championship. They were fit and ready and also gave us an opportunity when we finished our league campaign; we had a six-week block before we came into championship. We didn’t need to worry about league quarter-finals or semi-finals.

“We knuckled down, got on the training pitch and the group worked like dogs leading into the Ballina game. It kind of gave us an opportunity to stay away from everybody and do our own thing.” 

Nineteen years since they won the Sweeney Cup and made the jump to senior, there is one last obstacle in county football for Breaffy to overcome and whether it’s the club 70th anniversary or not, Coghill wants that final piece of silverware.

“I think it would be great for Breaffy to win the Moclair Cup any year. 70 years, 60 years, I know it looks scripted but I’d make no reference to that at all. We’ve never won one before, we’ll take a Moclair Cup any year.”