Mannion is ready for fierce battle with Shanahan boys
AHASCRAGH/Fohenagh captain Padraic Mannion is chewing iron. There is a big game on the horizon and it just can’t come quick enough. Some would surmise his club has a mountain to climb on Sunday. If that is the case, the Galway defender must have been a mountaineer in another lifetime.
For Mannion is primed. “I am sick talking about it now; I just want go out and play it.” It is the statement of a man who loves to embrace these challenges head on – be it with club or county. It is the statement of a man willing to put it all on the line.
In many respects, that is what Ahascragh/Fohenagh as a whole will have do because, Mannion recognises, there can be no half measures when they face Waterford and Munster champions Lismore in their All-Ireland intermediate club hurling semi-final at O’Connor Park, Tullamore on Sunday (2.15pm).
Lismore will present a significant challenge – not least due to the fact they boast of the Shanahan brothers, Maurice and big Dan. It is not lost on the Ahascragh/Fohenagh captain. “Obviously, you are not going to go into the game and not talk about those players. They are big players,” he admits.
“Then you have Tony Browne (former Waterford star) who is over them so you would expect they will have their homework done. Any team who comes out of Munster, whatever grade it is, is never going to be a bad team but, look it, all you can do is make sure you have your own house in order and worry about ourselves.”
Since winning the county final – and securing senior status – Ahascragh/Fohenagh have been in dreamland. They subsequently went on to defeat Ballyhaunis of Mayo in the Connacht final, after a replay, and now the club enters unchartered waters once again with a date in the All-Ireland series.
“As a player, you just have to treat it as much as you can like another game even though you know it is bigger than that. You don’t want to let the occasion creep into it too much. There is excitement building around the place but, again, you don’t really want to get caught up in it too much.
“I suppose, at the start of the year, the county final was our main aim – you don’t think too much about Connacht finals or All-Ireland semi-finals – and you felt after the county final that everything after that would be a bonus.”
With their 2016 campaign running deep into November – and given they had begun training back in January – a decision was made to take a break. The fear, Mannion says, was that the players would just go stale and become tired mentally and physically. So, they have gambled.
“When you haven’t been in this position before an awful lot of it is a step into the unknown. You don’t know is this the right way to do things or not. So, you just pick something and go with it and see if it works. The lads needed a break and we didn’t want lads to be looking for a break when it came to January 1st. If that was the right way to go, you don’t know, but that was the route we took.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.