Frost plays it cool as Brigid’s savour Connacht success

Brian Stack against Gary Sice, Ben O’Carroll against Liam Silke. These were always the blue-chip, headline act contests that were inevitably going to have a huge say on the likely winter home for the Shane McGettigan Cup.

However bubbling under that level were some intriguing battles between players that perhaps don’t have the same national profile, but are still vitally important to their respective club sides. Dylan McHugh up against Paul McGrath, Eddie Nolan taking on Patrick Egan, and of course, Pearse Frost attempting to lock down Jack McCabe.

Twice in this game McCabe found the target, but his scores were so sublime, that they only served to further emphasise how well Pearse Frost was doing in his man-on-man battle close to goal with the young Corofin attacker. Frost’s tenacious, focused and disciplined defending had locked McCabe down once he was within 30 metres of the St Brigid’s goal, and while Stack was on another level, one could see why the All-Star nominee sought to deflect praise onto his full-back-line colleagues, Frost and Robbie Dolan.

McCabe was the man of the match last time out against Ballina Stephenites, and he had been incredibly prolific all year, but once Frost sprinted out to the first ball to knock it down, it was clear that this game was going to be played on very different terms.

“When you win the first ball, it really sets you up for the game and gives you the confidence to really attack the game, and it knocks the other players confidence as well, so winning that first ball was huge,” he told the Westmeath Independent.

“I wouldn’t say I enjoy it (the role of man-marking). I knew my task today was a big one, Jack McCabe is a brilliant footballer, he scored five or six against Ballina, but I looked forward to putting myself out there and trying to do the best job I can against a good player.”

While this St Brigid’s team is incredibly cohesive, working as a fluid unit rather than as a collection of individuals, there is one topic where there is real diversity in the group, and that’s the matter of 2020, when they last won the Roscommon title. When asked if the failure to get a chance to compete for Connacht that year was an issue, different St Brigid’s players responded differently.

Eddie Nolan insisted it wasn’t a big deal; Ruaidhri Fallon has stated that he wanted that shot that he felt was taken from him; and Frost was similar in that he felt that St Brigid’s missed out on a glorious chance to reshape their footballing trajectories.

“It’s a personal thing and it probably would vary if you asked different players,” Frost agreed. “But for me, I’d say it definitely was. From growing up and seeing all the lads coming through and winning Connacht titles, beating Corofin in some of those games, it felt a bit unfair in 2020 when we didn’t get to go on and try and see if we were capable of doing the same, so it made it a lot more special today,” he added.