Long and winding road for O’Brien family

WHEN the O’Brien family decamp to Cusack Park on Sunday, their day there will represent a remarkable twist in what has been an evolving sporting journey.
Three months ago, there wasn’t a single person in the whole of Clare who had an inkling that St Joseph’s would feature in the parish’s first senior county football final for 113 years.
Three years ago, when the O’Brien brothers, David, Johnny and Chris, transferred from Clooney-Quin to play football for Doora-Barefield, they could hardly have imagined how their move would pan out.
From day one though, they were salivating at the prospect of merely playing senior club football. The sport is, after all, in their blood.
“Our father, Seán is an ex-Tyrone footballer. We play soccer together as well, so we’re a very close-knit family. We’re massively into our football and our sport,” David told The Clare Champion, a distinct Northern twang still evident.
“We’d been living in Belfast. Our mother and father are Tyrone people but we were raised in Belfast and went to school there. I think it was in 1998 our parents decided to move to Quin. We’d relations there and we used to holiday down here. Our parents felt at that stage it would be a good move and it has proved so ever since,” he added, by way of explaining how the O’Briens ended up in Clare.
Football-related dreams, the O’Briens soon learned, were not keeping the locals entertained at night in Quin. The O’Briens, however, set about trying to change all of that.
“We set up a Gaelic football team in Clooney-Quin and we had a fair bit of success. We won the Junior B and the Junior A in 2003 and 2004. We played against Kilmihil in the intermediate semi-final in 2005,” David recalled.
However, five years teaching and playing senior football in London didn’t help in enticing David back into the Clooney-Quin football fold when he came home. He wanted to continue playing at the highest possible level.
“Hurling is gospel there,” he said of the hazards of living in Quin, where his wife Edwina is from. “We saw Doora-Barefield as a move up to senior football and that’s what we always wanted to play. I’d tasted senior football in my time in London with Tír Connaill Gaels.”
Now employed as a PE teacher at Ennis Community College and the Gaelcoláiste, David spent much of 2011 employed as a Clare GAA football coach.
“I really enjoyed the job with Clare GAA. It was an eye opener for me really into Clare football and the structures that exist. My geography has definitely improved, although John Enright (Clare GAA games development administrator) might disagree,” the St Joseph’s half-forward laughed.
“I’d be more aware now of what exactly is going on at all levels of Clare football, particularly the underage system and what’s coming through,” he added.
With regard to St Joseph’s pending county final appearance, David admits he has odd ‘how did we get here’ moments.
“It’s been a topsy-turvy season for us with everything that’s happened, both on and off the field. The last day against Wolfe Tones there was a lot of nerves knocking about but we just did enough to get through and over the line.
“We’re still a little bit shocked to be here but we have to knuckle down now,” he said.
Losing their first game to Miltown was a setback but scoring a mere point from play against Cratloe, in their second group game, nearly finished St Joseph’s championship season.
“After the Cratloe game, we’d hit rock bottom. After that I think we realised we probably needed a bit more football and a few more games.
“I remember coming up and playing Coolmeen on a Tuesday night when we were due to have training. It gave us a good challenge game and we got plenty of scores, which we hadn’t been getting up to that stage in championship football. That allowed us to build a bit of confidence. We had a couple of games against Monaleen and the games brought us on,” he remembers.
In their win or fold-up-the-tent game against Shannon Gaels, St Joseph’s got motoring.
“That evening, it was the goals we got at crucial times that really sealed it for us,” David feels.
Now, just a few days from the biggest game of his career, he feels that if Doora-Barefield stay calm and believe in themselves, the club and the O’Brien family might end 2011 in the company of Jack Daly.
“We just need to keep focused on the task at hand. If we can play football the way that we have done in patches this year, we’re in with a shout,” the Doora-Barefield number 10 predicted.