Brian Stack of St Brigid’s, Roscommon, pictured ahead of the AIB GAA Senior Club Championship Football All-Ireland Final, between Watty Graham’s Glen and St Brigid’s. This season, AIB will honour #TheToughest players in Gaelic Games - those who persevere no matter what, giving their all for their club and community. AIB is in its 33rd year supporting the AIB GAA All-Ireland Club Championships. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
The list of forwards that Brian Stack has tested himself against in recent months with club and county is an impressive one that includes Brian Hurley, Gary Sice, Con O’Callaghan, Shane Walsh, Ryan O’Donoghue, Niall Murphy, and Darragh Kirwan.
An All-Star nominee in 2023, the St. Brigid’s and Roscommon full-back is one of the very best specialist man-markers in the game right now.
There was a time when most teams had someone who fulfilled that role, who would always be the one detailed to pick up the opposition’s star forward, but not so much in the modern game.
Maybe it’s because teams now defend in numbers with as many players behind the ball as possible, but the skill of one-on-one defending seems to have waned.
Stack is something of a throw-back because he’s such a sticky player who excels in man v man situations.
His ability to smell danger means he often wins the ball ahead of the forward he’s marking, and, even when his opponent wins possession, Stack’s footwork and ability to get a hand in makes him a difficult man to get past.
If St. Brigid’s are to pull off a surprise in Sunday’s AIB All-Ireland Club Final against Glen, then chances are that Stack will have won his duel with their chief scoring threat, Danny Tallon.
“I suppose you have to pride yourself on it a small bit,” says Stack on the art of one-on-one defending.
“But the way the game is gone, like you said, 15 attack and 15 defend, you really do rely on what happens around you as a defender.
“The speed of forwards now, there's probably more fouls in a game now than there was maybe 10 years ago. It's very hard to defend now without fouling and conceding scores so you need those numbers around you.
“Probably the most important thing from my point of view is communication and trying to organise things around you. You don't want to leave yourself vulnerable too many times. And then when you are vulnerable you just have to try to back yourself.
“It's a tough skill to try to stop these top-class forwards in one on one situations but you just have to try to back yourself and do your best.”
Brian Stack of Roscommon in action against Jack Carney of Mayo during the 2023 Allianz Football League Division 1 match between Roscommon and Mayo at Dr Hyde Park in Roscommon. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile.
The best defenders are glass half empty sorts of players. They assume the worst could happen at any time, which is why they’re ready to react when it does.
“You have to almost have that negative mindset of anything could go wrong here,” says Stack.
“You have to be always anticipating things that might go wrong. Even when you have the ball you have to be kind of set up so that if you lose it or if this happens that you can recover. So, yeah, concentration is a massive part of it.”
Glen’s presence in Sunday’s Final isn’t that much of a surprise considering their recent pedigree, but not many people would have predicted St. Brigid’s would find themselves in this position at the outset of the season.
They’d failed to even reach the final in Roscommon in the previous two years, which counts as a famine for a club that won 11 championships from 2005 to 2020.
So how have they turned that around this season to win county and provincial titles and reach an All-Ireland Final?
“I think the vital thing this year was the lads who were training with the club,” says Stack.
“Obviously we were away for a couple of months with Roscommon and the lads who trained with the club since January last year really put the shoulder to the wheel and did serious work with Cian O'Dea our strength and conditioning coach.
“When we came back with Roscommon it was just seamless. The training was more or less the same standard so that was definitely the big difference I noticed this year.”
St Brigid's players, from left, Brian Stack, Seán Trundle and Pearse Frost celebrate after their side's victory in the AIB Connacht GAA Football Senior Club Championship final between St Brigid's, Roscommon, and Corofin, Galway, at Dr Hyde Park in Roscommon. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile.
They’ll go into Sunday’s Final as underdogs against a Glen team that showed they learned a lot from last year’s All-Ireland Final defeat to Kilmacud Crokes by beating the same opponents in this year’s semi-final.
Don’t expect St. Brigid’s to overawed by Glen’s reputation, though. All-Ireland champions themselves in 2013, their teams always have a healthy degree of self-confidence and that should stand to them on Sunday.
“Yeah, Glen have been knocking on the door for the past couple of years,” says Stack.
“Probably similar to our lads 11 years ago when they won it. I've no doubt that at the start of the year their ambitions were for All-Irelands whereas we were thinking about Roscommon first.
“If you look at the inter-county game Derry are probably the most tactically astute team, the most tactically aware team. The core of that team play for Glen, four or five of them. Then you throw Malachy O'Rourke in on top of that...they're very well coached and they know what they're at.
“Even seeing the semi-final when Kilmacud came back at them they just stuck to their guns and knew what they were at which is a very impressive trait in a team.
“We'll have our work cut out but we'll just put our best foot forward and see what happens.
“It's 60 minutes of football between two teams both trying to win. Glen will feel they have to win it. But we'll be saying the same. We can't think that this is going to come around every year, it's not.
“You have to take the chance when it's there in front of you.”
