Breheny aims to oversee the Saints rebirth
HAVING made his name as an outstandingly prolific forward with St Mary’s, winning county titles in 2001 and 2014, Mark Breheny is now making his name as a manager.
In his first year in charge he’s guided the Ballydoogan-based club to the Homeland Senior Football Championship final where the mighty Tourlestrane await.
If he gets St Mary’s over the line at Markievicz Park against six-in-arow champions Tourlestrane then Breheny will have won titles both as a player and a manager – Mark’s older brother, Tommy, was in charge of those successful St Mary’s teams from 21 years ago and back in 2014.
Enjoying the buzz of management – although he still wishes he was togging out for Sunday’s county final rather than patrolling the sideline in a bib marked ‘bainisteoir’, Breheny feels that St Mary’s have lots of untapped potential. St Mary’s won five consecutive Sligo Minor ‘A’ Football Championship titles (2011-15) less than a a decade ago and Breheny believes that these players, among them Nathan Rooney, Ryan Feehily, Kyle Cawley and Paul Kilcoyne, can propel the club into a new era in the Homeland Senior Football Championship.
Just two years ago St Mary’s, then managed by Aidan Rooney, so very nearly defeated Tourlestrane in a county semi-final – they were two points up, 2-4 to 0-8, but were caught by Tourlestrane’s surge in stoppage time that yielded three points.
Eight of the St Mary’s players used that day were on duty on the Sunday before last when St Mary’s overcame Drumcliffe-Rosses Point on penalties. Breheny also saw progress in this year’s Furey’s Coaches Senior Football League. Although St Mary’s only won three of their eight games, they gave an encouraging performance against Tourlestrane and shared the spoils with eventual Division One champions Coolera-Strandhill.
Used to affecting games by his scores or assists when an exceptional player, Breheny, now 41, is discovering with every passing week how frustrating – and rewarding – management can be. Along with his backroom team, which includes David Keane and Damian Eames (who brought St Farnan’s to last year’s Connacht
SKILLS: Mark Breheny in action for St Mary’s in the 2018 Sligo SFC.
Gold Intermediate Football Championship title), he has had to deal with key players getting injured. Dylan Kilgallon has missed the campaign altogether, Kyle Cawley sustained a season-ending knee injury late in the game against Shamrock Gaels on August 20.
Breheny hopes that his nephew, Cian, and Luke Nicholson will be available for selection this Sunday, but Paul Kilcoyne could be set to miss the county final because of an arm injury sustained in last weekend’s Sligo Senior Hurling Championship when playing for Naomh Eoin.
On the positive side, goalkeeper Jack Teape is back – and flying it – after 12 months out with a knee injury. The netminder, who would have been part of this year’s Sligo U-20 panel, made several vital saves in a Group One defeat of Shamrock Gaels and then he stopped three spot-kicks in the now famous penalty shoot-out against Drumcliffe-Rosses Point. Gerard O’Kelly-Lynch and Fionn O’Hehir have excelled defensively, while veteran forward Stephen Coen has rolled back the years – he scored half a dozen points in the county semi-final. “Given the guys who are coming through into the senior panel and the fellas who are established, I felt that we should be competitive this year in the championship – we tried to build momentum during the [Furey’s Coaches] Senior Football League,” Breheny stated.
“We did OK against Tourlestrane and Coolera-Strandhill, who were last year’s county finalists, so we knew we were going in the right direction.