O'Brien under no illusions that Ballinagar's window of opportunity may be a short one

INITIALLY appointed as coach for 2023, Benny O'Brien ended up in the managerial role when one of the great local stalwarts, David Gorry stepped aside a couple of months later and has remained in-situ as Ballinagar embarked on one of the great stories of the modern Offaly GAA era.

A small, struggling junior club for several years, the emergence of a golden generation of players at underage level during the 2010s transformed Ballinagar and as the graduated into adult ranks at the turn of the 2020s, their fortunes took off.

They won the Junior Football Championship in 2022, were beaten by Erin Rovers in the Intermediate Football Championship quarter-final in 2023, shocked neighbours Raheen in the final a year later when they won the Leinster Junior Football Championship. They continued their remarkable, linear, progression when making the Senior “B” Football Championship final in 2025.

The step up from intermediate to senior “B” is considerable and Ballinagar perhaps reached that final a year before their time. Irrespective of whether they did or not, the presence of a more seasoned Clara outfit meant that the final was always likely to be a bridge too far for them and to the surprise of no one, Ballinagar were beaten.

“We probably in a sense over performed,” O'Brien agreed, while he felt the week between a dramatic extra time semi-final win over Daingean and the final also came against them. “They were expecting to play in the final and they played their semi-final on the final. We played on the Saturday, it went to extra time and mentally we weren't in the right place. We were still living on the Daingean win.”

He claimed they may not have beaten Clara but would have been closer with an extra week. “To be honest, Clara were by far the best team in the championship last year,” he confessed.

They have returned for a second bite of the cherry this year and with some excellent young talent, most of them maturing now towards their peak year, Ballinagar have all the ducks lined up neatly in a row to go senior for the first time since the 1890s. They are under no illusions about the threat posed by a Tullamore team who will relish playing them, come from a club who always expect to win finals and generally perform in them – one of the most talked about factors in this final is Benny managing Ballinagar against a Tullamore club that he played for and served in various management roles over the year and whom his son Kevin will line out for on Saturday.

Benny O'Brien does not dodge the suggestion that Ballinagar's window of opportunity for going senior may be a short one – time is on the side of several of the players but injuries, emigration, a whole heap of factors could bring their golden era to a shuddering halt. He has no qualms about placing that pressure on the group and has told them regularly this year: “Oh yeah, the opportunity for getting up may be short, you get that window and you need to make hay when it comes. It is amazing how easy it can end. You take a group of lads who are performing like them this year and you miss two or three of them and all of a sudden, the whole thing falls asunder.

“To be back in the final is great but there is an oppportunity there and you have to be looking at it and saying how many chances are young going to get to go senior. This is our second one and we have to be treating it accordingly.”

A native of Roscommon but a long time resident of Tullamore, Benny O'Brien had been a coach with Roger Ryan and Offaly minor footballers in 2023 and committed to Ballinagar when asked. He had managed his home club of St Brigid's in Kiltoom to a Roscommon senior football title in 2021 and having fulfilled that role with various teams over several years, he wanted to take a step back and focus more on coaching.

“I had my fill of management,” he reflected. He “really enjoyed” working with Roger Ryan and Offaly minor footballers. “You don't have as much hassle when you are doing coaching as opposed to management. I fancied doing the coaching but I ended up being the manager in Ballinagar, it was just the way it fell.”

He knows it is a very special time for Ballinagar, tracing it back to a group of young children winning a Cumann nBunscol final with the local national school, progressing up underage ranks and winning a minor football title with the Killeigh parish underage club Na Fianna in 2019.

“They have been performing a decently high level over the years and have been doing well in all grades. Winning the minor was a major thing. There is a good bunch there who were coached very well up along and they are grown young men now. They are good lads.”

The 2024 intermediate football final win over Raheen was arguably their single biggest in the modern era. Many of those players had played together at underage, there is a long shared and separate history between the two neighbours and an intricate mix of family ties added to an intoxicating mix.

As an outsider, O'Brien only learnt about this as he went along. How did you manage all this?

“I think the start of the year, it was a very topsy turvy year. We beat Raheen in the first round in Geashill and we were on a high. The next thing Ballinagar's first intermediate game at home, St Brigid's came to town and hockeyed us by nine points and two weeks later Tullamore beat us by six. We were in a poor enough spot.”

They managed to beat Kilcormac-Killoughey to qualify and “we started to build momentum”.

He retains vivid memories of the final build up. “There was a lot around the club in terms of family history and connections. You are trying to shelter the players from that and address it as being just one more match, no different than any other. It is a final of course so the expectations are higher. Just trying to focus on the football, get them in there and away from the noise, zoom in on it. That was my challenge as a manager.”

O'Brien felt they got a “lucky break” with a decisive Robbie Gallagher goal to win it on the day but agreed: “It was a major step up, we kind of struggled to step from junior to intermediate and winning that was huge because of the significance, A, winning the championship but B, the connections between the clubs and we kicked off after that.”

Winning championships with regularity is very much new territory for Ballinagar and there is a different level of excitement than with more seasoned clubs. “I always feel that with a group of lads like that you are in a coccoon on your own and I always encourage them to hang out together, not to listen to the noise around them. They are a quite focused group of guys, they know what they are about and they have their own expectations as well. It is to manage all that. I would have said they were at a slight disadvantage growing up, they didn't see success in the club so in effect they are writing their own history. To manage that is the challenge but the players are quite focused.”

He has seen that with the emergence of real leaders “driving” on everyone else as they get older. “Earlier on, we didn't really have leaders on the field but they are coming through now. They are mature and it is great to see.”

Ballinagar had a great win in the Leinster club Junior Football Championship in 2024 and O'Brien agreed that this was “massive”. He pointed out that they came the “longest route” with four games, having met and agreed to give it 100%. They were fortunate to come up against mediocre opposition in Ballon in Carlow in the first round and everything ignited from there. “It was an ideal game for us and the confidence started to grow hugely.”

Ballinagar were pipped at the post by An Ceathru Rua in the All-Ireland semi-final. The Galway club went on to win the All-Ireland club final with ease in Croke Park and even now O'Brien flinches when it is suggested they missed a great opportunity that year.

“I sensed it at the time because you only get one shot at these. We were a point up with a minute to go, the goalie came up and kicked a '45', then they won the kickout and got the winning score out of it. We were that close to it, it is unreal and we would have been the first club football team from Offaly to have got to an All-Ireland final and that would have been absolutely massive, for a little village like Ballinagar to have been in Croke Park on All-Ireland final day.”

He felt they were a “little bit unfortunate” in the build up with two lads getting sick and that the “energy levels were not high enough in the Hyde (Roscommon) that day”.

“When I still think about it, it is a big regret but it is the losses you remember more than anything because it is a missed opportunity and that was definitely one for us,” he reflected.

Ballinagar have performed solidly all year but had a spectacular malfunction in the group when Daingean anihilated them, putting seven goals past them. He laughed when asked what happened.

“It was a funny game. We thought going in we were well set up. We had a lot of injuries early on in the year and the bench was improving. There were times we were down seven or eight players, particularly in the league between county players and fellows injured. It seemed to be coming together and we had been neck and neck with Daingean over recent years but any time they get on top of us they seem to win well and they got a run on us.”

Ballinagar were eight points up but conceded two “disaster” goals coming up to half time, another one on the resumption and the wheels came off. “It was one of those games that is very hard to explain but to concede seven goals in a championship match, I never witnessed that one before. Some times it happens in a game where you have a number of players who are not performing poorly but make a wrong decision, then there is another and another one and the ball is in the back of the net. I can't explain it. What you find in the current game is that when you have momentum, you can do a serious amount of damage and likewise you can suffer a lot and a team will score heavily on you. They were super that day, they absolutely trounced us.”

He was happy with Ballinagar's semi-final win over Tubber, insisting that they took nothing for granted even though they were warm favourites. “It is a knockout game and if you are not performing by a couple of percentage points, it can go wrong. You still have to win it.”

O'Brien knows Tullamore inside out – his own son Kevin will be in their defence - and knows what to expect on Saturday. “I have a long history with Tullamore. I have spent the guts of 20 years between coaching and playing with Tullamore so I have the height of respect for the club and the players involved. You will always find the players are all coached well, they are all good and they are natural footballers. If you look at their performance in the semi-final, particularly in the third quarter, they were unreal, they absolutely controlled the game. They controlled the ball, Daingean were struggling to get a kickout away and they were fantastic.

“They did it in the first half in the intermediate final against St Brigid's last year, they absolutely swarmed them. Their work rate, their tackling their right decisions, the right fellow gets the ball at the right time. Tullamore in a final in O'Connor Park are a different animal and you will probably see that on Saturday week.”

On the other side of the coin, Ballinagar are also very much an O'Connor Park team and they have a couple of players who perform better there than any other venue. O'Brien did not argue with that.

“I think it suits, the style of players we have in Ballinagar. It suits the type of football we are trying to play. It is open and it is a fast pitch and they enjoy playing on it. They would have quite a good record there going back to underage. They are happy out, they are comfortable playing in O'Connor Park.”

Robbie Gallagher has emerged as Ballinagar's star forward and again, the manager does not shy way from the question about what happens if he is held or doesn't performed. “He has stepped up as the leader in the forward line for sure and he is having an outstanding season. He has tremendous work rate, a great attitude. He is doing everything he possibly can to lead that group and perform himself on the day. Of course you would be worried if he is held but we do have lads around who can score. You find that when one lad is held, another steps up to the mark. It was great to see Morgan (Tynan) coming to the fore the last day and Jacob Beatty but even around that, you have Conor Bracken. We got 1-2 off the bench, probably should have got more. It is not as if we are a one man team and we do have a lot of options around the place.

“Everyone is expected to contribute there, not stand back and we are encouraging them all, if you are there and you are in an attacking position, you have to be threatening, you have to be setting up scores or kicking them yourself. Look when Robbie is going well, we do have good lads around him.”

Mention of Morgan Tynan brought us onto Ballinagar's most naturally gifted footballer, a man who can blow hot and cold but looked very hungry against Tubber and at different times this year. “Morgan is naturally such a talented footballer and he comes in for a lot of attention, a lot of discussion on him but I have never had issues with him. He has a great attitude and he is very open and honest. Like a lot of players, sometimes, it doesn't go well for them on the day but it is not for a lack of effort on his part. He is hugely talented. Some day, some things go, other days they don't but he does come in for a lot of attention, I must say!”

He agreed that there is a chance for Ballinagar to go senior. “Yes but you need to take them. I remember someone saying a team who were there the previous year and were there again, that they had the experience of being in a final. We have that but it wasn't a great experience. We need to be conscious of that and to try and prepare as best as we can, to do the right things at the right time in the match but it is not going to be easy, it is going to be a 50-50 game. I would have said after Daingean beat us that whoever takes Daingean out will win the championship. Tullamore have done that, so . . . . . “