SHARED VISION OF GLORY
Behind enemy lines all week, the Crokes’ management duo will put divided loyalties aside
THERE are moments this week when Robbie Brennan must have felt like a character out of a John le Carré novel. A double agent, dropped behind enemy lines.
Welcome to the complicated life of the Kilmacud Crokes jointmanager, whose team happen to be playing St Peter’s Dunboyne in the quarter-final of the Leinster club football Championship at Páirc Tailteann tomorrow afternoon.
The Stillorgan outfit that he grew up with, won county titles with, against the Meath champions who he also managed and lined out for, winning a county title.
Such is life’s complications when you marry and settle in Dunboyne. His wife Liz is a sister of David Gallagher, the evergreen Meath goalkeeper enjoying a third coming as a midfielder at the grand age of 37, the only player in the opposition camp to be part of all three of Dunboyne’s county titles dating back 20 years – 1998, 2005 and 2018.
It hasn’t quite reached the stage that he needs a fake beard and glasses before going out in public this week but Brennan took a simple tactical approach to the build-up: ‘Keep the head down and go to Clonee to do the shopping!
‘Going through the Dunboyne squad, there are only four or five I haven’t shared a dressing room with, either as player or manager.
‘They were playing in an Under21 match last night and my wife said, “Are you coming?”
‘I said no, just with the week that’s in it. My son in school, his teacher’s son Michael is on the team.
‘I remember chatting before with my other brother in law, Denis. He was captain in ’05. I was saying to him “This is a nightmare.” He said “Stop. Enjoy it. This is what it’s all about.”’
The fact that it’s the third time fate has pitted the clubs together when he has been directly involved is, as he puts it, just plain ‘weird’.
In ’98, he was full-forward as the pair fought out a titanic battle in Navan, Dunboyne’s line-up featuring familiar Meath names such as Enda McManus, Nigel Crawford, Brendan Reilly, Gallagher and current county manager Andy McEntee.
Crokes edged it 2-7 to 1-9, Ray Cosgrove hitting the decisive point after a move that involved Johnny Magee, Brennan’s close ally and current joint-manager. And coincidentally, also living in Meath, just over the road in Ashbourne.
‘Robbie, unfortunately, is between a rock and a hard place,’ laughs Magee. ‘I said to Robbie, he can come and live with us for the week! It adds to the excitement of it.’
Brennan sensed the stars aligning even before Crokes won a first Dublin championship since 2010. ‘It’s weird. About four, five weeks ago, I saw Éire Óg [Carlow] had won their Championship, and I started looking at it from our point of view, how it was 20 years on from ’98, when we played in the Leinster final. Thinking as well that if Dunboyne win as well, then this could actually happen where we meet, just like in ’98.
‘My dad was originally from outside Navan, so there is always that Meath connection. I remember the buzz around ’98, you had big players like Enda McManus and Brendan Reilly. I was following my own history because dad had won Championships.’ To Magee and those who know him, Robbie Brennan answers to his nickname ‘Baggio’. It’s not just that he shares the same initials as the gifted Italian striker and playmaker Roberto Baggio, or could make a ball talk, the moniker stuck for another reason – he missed a penalty the same day as Baggio in the 1994 World Cup final shoot-out. There’s a story, too, in how he ended up transferring to Dunboyne and facing his old club in the same competition back in 2005. ‘I was working in Anglo Irish [Bank] at the time, Andy [McEntee] was working in Davy Stockbrokers. I met him on Grafton Street one day, I think we had just lost the county final to Na Fianna. He went through it with me and said, “Would you think about coming over?”
‘Typical Andy – he’s like a dog with a bone. I’d say I got a phone call literally every day from him. You know what he’s like. I think it was 2002, then I went down and made the transfer.
‘We won the Championship then in 2005. Of course, it had to be Kilmacud in Leinster. To be fair, I definitely felt we had a chance. We had some good young talent in the team. I remember Ray Cosgrove ran amok. He kicked 1-10. he was unstoppable. I was marking Ciaran Kelleher. Even afterwards, it was just surreal.’
Magee feels that any memories of that last meeting, when Crokes coasted to a 1-14 to 0-3 win, will only fire Dunboyne on.
‘I know we won comprehensively. That will be a motivation for Dunboyne that history doesn’t repeat itself. For Dunboyne, it was just one of those days – nothing went right for them and everything went right for us. Baggio was a good footballer so we knew he would cause problems if the ball went into him.
‘We didn’t want Robbie exposing us because we knew what he was capable of. You get those days in GAA.’
A conversation late last year with Magee, who spent the previous three years in charge of Wicklow, saw them link up to take charge of Crokes this season. Ably assisted by Paul Griffin and Robbie Leahy, also former players, and Shane Smith, they worked the oracle, Paul Mannion adding his own stardust to the county final triumph over St Jude’s.
The backstory of the DublinMeath football rivalry adds another layer to a meeting like tomorrow, particularly in a week when it was announced that the counties would meet in a fundraiser next month for former Dunboyne chairman Sean Cox, who was left critically injured after an attack by Roma supporters at Liverpool’s Champions League game back in April, but whose road to rehabilitation has drawn huge support.
With the ladies footballers of both counties to act as the curtain-raiser, Magee’s own daughter Lauren, who plays for Dublin, is set to feature. ‘There is a huge rivalry and a huge respect that comes with Meath and Dublin football,’ adds Magee.
‘Particularly when they play against each other with club or county. It’s a respectful rivalry. You can see that with the Sean Cox fundraiser.
‘It would be a great occasion if the ladies were playing ahead of the men. It would add to that uniqueness of the GAA, that it’s for both codes.’
It’s that same rivalry that is feeding into the club clash and that is expected to draw a big crowd to Navan.
As someone who understands the border rivalry only too well, Brennan said that the Dublin-Meath fundraiser is already catching the imagination. ‘I was talking to someone about that match, they are really pitching it about the DublinMeath rivalry. It’s huge. It’s important that tradition is carried through. As Andy [McEntee] says, somebody has to beat Dublin somewhere along the way. In Meath, you can just see the response any time Dublin is mentioned.’
Tomorrow’s Leinster quarter-final is an extension of that. Club, county and family ties, all bound up together.