Branagan: we will all give it everything to scale the highest peak

How they got to the final Down SFC semi-final: Kilcoo 0-12

Clonduff 2-3

Down SFC final: Kilcoo 1-12 Warrenpoint

0-14

Ulster Club semi-final: Kilcoo 1-8

Derrygonnelly 0-9

Ulster Club final: Kilcoo 2-11 Naomh

Conaill 2-9

All-Ireland Club semi-final: Kilcoo 2-8

Ballyboden St Enda’s 0-11

How they got to the final Galway SFC semi-final: Corofin 1-16

Salthill Knockacarra 1-10

Galway SFC final: Corofin 0-11 Tuam

Stars 0-8

Connacht Club semi-final: Corofin 1-10

Ballintubber 0-11

Connacht Club final: Corofin 1-10

Padraig Pearses 0-7

All-Ireland Club semi-final: Corofin

1-10 Nemo Rangers 0-7

IT was perhaps the passionate post-match observation from dynamic wing-back Daryl Branagan that best encapsulated just what winning the Ulster Club football title for the first time last month really meant to the people of Kilcoo.

“When you see grown men coming up to hug you with tears in their eyes, this shows you just what the victory over Naomh Conaill meant to them,” declared Branagan.

It is safe to assume, then, that should the Down and Ulster champions get the better of Corofin in tomorrow’s All-Ireland Club final, Croke Park will witness an outpouring of emotion that could rival that at any All-Ireland inter-county decider.

Six Down titles on the trot may have formed a staple diet of success for the Magpies until they were relieved of their trophy by Burren in 2018 before regaining it last year, but all the while there remained the irksome worry that they had failed to prove themselves on the provincial stage.

All that changed when, in his role as a footballing messiah, Mickey Moran plotted a first provincial triumph that was to prove the precursor to a stunning All-Ireland semi-final win over Ballyboden St Enda’s, which was accompanied by the team’s passport into tomorrow’s decider against reigning All-Ireland kingpins Corofin.

In redrawing the Kilcoo landscape, Moran has lit the fuse for what could prove to be the most memorable occasion in the club’s history.

And no one has pledged to do everything possible to make this happen more emphatically than the passionate Branagan.

It was his goal at a crucial stage in the second half that laid the groundwork for his team’s win over Naomh Conaill, and when he repeated the feat against Ballyboden St Enda’s, his personal stock soared.

No surprise, then, that he goes into tomorrow’s game as the latest winner of the Quinn Building Products Ulster GAA Writers’ Association monthly merit award, an unexpected bonus from his perspective but a deserved personal accolade from the viewpoint of those who appreciate excellence.

Kilcoo (Down/Ulster)

Tomorrow, Branagan and his comrades-in-arms will confront their biggest ever obstacle, comforted by the generous infusion of self-belief