HOW many hours has he given to his club? Hundreds? Thousands more like, but it’s virtually impossible to say.
Brian Benson broke into the Crossmolina squad in 2003, the year the Mayo club last reached an All-Ireland final. For 17 seasons, as the memories of the glory years gradually faded, he played up front with the Deel Rovers and it took hip injuries to force him off the field in 2020 at the age of 34.
He was immediately appointed senior manager and has guided his club out of the doldrums and back to the All-Ireland final, this time at intermediate level.
Crossmolina were All-Ireland senior champions in 2001, the year before Ballinderry – their opponents in Sunday’s decider at Croke Park – took the crown and, whatever the result on Sunday, history will be made because no club has ever won All-Ireland titles at senior and intermediate level.
Now in his fourth season as manager, Benson took on a side that had dropped out of senior football during his playing days.
“The trapdoor was going to open eventually,” he says.
“We had been hanging on and a lot of the men from the golden era (Kieran McDonald, James Nallen etc) had retired. We had a good young team come through and we won the league in 2010 and lost a county senior semi-final in 2012 but then we lost a couple of players and some of the good young lads emigrated. It just became a struggle and then the trapdoor opened and we went down.
“We had been struggling for four or five years – we didn’t get out of our group in the Mayo championship last year. But here we are now going to an All-Ireland final! It’s been a great season.”
Sunday’s finalists avoided each other during their heydays in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Crossmolina won five Mayo titles between 1999 and 2006 and that team also picked up three Connacht titles (1999, 2000 and 2002) and the All-Ireland in 2001, a run which included victory over Derry and Ulster champions Bellaghy at the semi-final stage.
The following year, Ballinderry dethroned Bellaghy in Derry, took out Down’s Mayobridge to win Ulster and went on to beat Cork’s Nemo themselves to take possession of the Andy Merrigan Cup.
Jarlath Bell, Benson’s counterpart at Ballinderry, was a member of that Shamrocks side and is cut from the same GAA cloth. Injuries ruined his playing career but his commitment to his club has never wavered.
Like the Mayo men, the Shamrocks have a proud tradition behind them and are determined to rekindle glory days with victory on Sunday.
“I’ve seen a couple of their games and you can see that, same as ourselves, they’re improving,” said Benson.
“They’ve a lot of quality and looking at them you can see that they’re a senior team. We’re under no illusions as to what we going to face with the McKinless brothers, Forbes and O’Donnell and Crozier… We know as much about them, I suppose, as they know about us but they’ve got quality all over the field, a very good goalkeeper, a strong defence, good midfield and good forwards and we’ll be looking to match that.
“I wouldn’t say we fear any particular style. We feel we have the players to play against defensive teams or attacking teams or whatever and we focus on ourselves because it’s all about our own performance.
“If we can get the best out of ourselves – and I think we can – we’ll be there or thereabouts hopefully.
“Playing at Croke Park is different. It’s not all about skillsets – a lot of it is the mindset and how players react to the occasion. Our job is to get the best out of our lads and hopefully they react well and, come 6pm on Sunday, we’ve got over the line.”
Crossmolina’s county stars Conor Loftus - a grand-nephew of the late Mick Loftus who was a member of the last Mayo side to win an All-Ireland – and Jordan Flynn have been key performers for their club all season.
“The two lads have been a huge influence on the group,” said Benson.
“We have a huge number of young players in the squad and those two have really stood up in a leadership capacity this year. The leadership they have shown has been phenomenal and that’s what we need, they’re the boys you need to step up on big occasions and guide the young lads through.”
Both clubs are going into Sunday’s final after bruising semi-finals last Saturday. With 1-2 from Loftus and three points each from midfielder Flynn and key forward Fionan Duffy, Crossmolina had nine points to spare against Kildare’s Caragh.
Meanwhile, at Parnell Park, Ballinderry produced arguably their best performance of the season to beat highly-fancied Austin Stacks of Tralee 0-11 to 0-7.
“We came through the weekend ok thankfully,” says Benson.
“We’ve a fully fit squad and everyone should be available.”
