Versatile Stack making a case for the defence
MORE than the scoreboard, it was the sight Brigid’s.of a heavily strapped Brian Stack making his way onto the Dr Hyde Park pitch in the fourth minute of extra-time against Mohill a fortnight ago which underlined the nervousness that had gripped St
What had looked like a routine passage to the Connacht final turned out to be anything but as the Leitrim champions refused to comply with the pre-match script, hunting down the Kiltoom men hard to come within two points.
Stack’s state of health has been perhaps the biggest question hanging over the Roscommon champions this week ahead of today’s Connacht final clash with Corofin.
In the throes of giving another man-marking master class in holding Niall Murphy, the Coolera Strandhill and Sligo sharpshooter, scoreless from play in the quarterfinal, he took a heavy tumble at the end of the third quarter and was helped from the field with a suspected knee injury.
That Stack would see any gametime in the semi-final was a slim prospect. But as much as it was a gauge of his team’s need, it was an even more pronounced measure of Stack’s influence that he was rolled on so that his presence would help see the thing out.
It is also why, strapping or no strapping, he is likely to be on the pitch today, firehose in hand as his team’s chief defensive firefighter with, almost certainly, Corofin veteran Gary Sice in his sights.
Recognition of Stack’s talents has been slow in coming, but over the past 12 months it has become impossible to ignore.
Few would argue with the merits of Enda Smith’s All-Star award earlier this month – in the process becoming the first man from the Primrose County to make the team of the year since Francie Grehan in 2001. But his fellow Roscommon nominee Stack had an equally strong claim.
Appointed as captain by Davy Burke, Roscommon’s strong spring campaign was cemented by a defence which conceded an average of just 13 points a game.
And while defence in the modern game is all about having a collegiate approach, Stack’s form reminded that there is always room for an exceptional individual.
In this summer’s championship, he posted numbers few, if any, could have matched – in six championship games he conceded just four points from open play.
What those numbers don’t explain is that he kept the kind of company in which getting scorch burns would be regarded as an occupational hazard, but Ryan O’Donoghue, Shane Walsh, Con O’Callaghan, Niall Murphy, Daniel Flynn and Stephen Sherlock all withered in his presence.
Here’s the rub, though. Stack was born not to shut down others but to play himself.
Handed his championship debut in 2017 by Kevin McStay, his sniping run through the Galway defence – after turning over a kick-out on the 45-metre line – and fire to the net sealed the return of the Nestor Cup after a seven-year absence in that year’s Connacht final.
Slight of body and fleet of foot, he was the ultimate middle eight player with a cutting edge – a long way from the man-marking specialist he is now.
Fittingly, he owes his conversion to his Kiltoom neighbour, Anthony Cunningham, who led St Brigid’s to their first ever Connacht title in 2006.
But it was towards the end of his four-year stint as Roscommon boss that Cunningham dropped Stack back, a move he concedes he was reluctant to make.
‘I suppose it was done more out of need than by design,’ said Cunningham. ‘When it came to Brian, you would be reluctant to move him from out the field because he is that good a ball player, you can just play him anywhere.
‘It was really out of necessity that we put him back because it can be very hard in the modern game to actually find a specialised fullback, who is a good defender, good tackler but who can also read the game well.
‘And that’s where Brian really comes into his own. He just sees the next move coming which is why he always seems to be in the right place at the right time.’
Stack is a defender of his age. The day when fullbacks came sculpted from rock while suppressing their sociopathic tendencies belong to faded comic strips, these days they mark and they play. ‘His intelligence is his biggest attribute playing in that role because he instinctively knows when he should go to break the line and he always takes care of the ball,’ added Cunningham.
‘He always makes the right decision and it is so rare that he ever is in trouble because of a mistake that he makes.
‘He has marked the top forwards in the country in this year’s championship and he has done brilliantly against all of them.
‘But that didn’t surprise me, we played Kerry a couple of years ago and we put Brian on David Clifford and he did really, really well.
‘If he was not needed in the fullback line, you would love to see him with the shackles off out the field because he really is that good a footballer.’
From a sporting family, his father John is a Kerry native who played for Listowel Emmets – by coincidence also the home club of St Brigid’s manager Jerome Stack (no relation) – while his Carlow mother Mary was also one of the Kiltoom club’s top ladies football players in her time.
His brother Ronan, one of the survivors today along with goalkeeper Cormac Sheehy from the 2013 AllIreland club winning team, has excelled in the half-back line this season.
‘All of our team have been excellent this year,’ explains St Brigid’s selector Enda Nugent, whose son, Bobby, will line out in the full-forward line today.
‘It is not one player, the half-forwards, the full-forwards, they all defend but Brian has just been a very steadying influence on the group.
‘It is just the presence he has as well. He is a quiet kind of fellow, but he is a real leader.’