By Michael Devlin

Aidan Branagan recalls how an inspirational chat with John McEntee roughly 15 years ago began a shift in mentality that has informed his footballing career ever since.

“I actually thought it was Tony McEntee at the time!” laughs the Kilcoo defender about the conversation with one of the Crossmaglen twins. “I was talking to John one day and I said, 'It actually started from your fella’.

“We were sitting in a pub one night, and we were a very, very average team. [McEntee] talked about [Crossmaglen Rangers] being an average team who went on to win All-Irelands, and we were sitting there and some of us were saying, 'We can do that lads’.

“I remember that night. I was sitting there half-cut, and I'd say I've never been drunk since. He turned me that night, the speech was that good. It was unbelievable and everybody was saying, 'We actually could do that'.

“We'd a brilliant brand of football coming through and we had a load of players the right age. Everybody was just breaking onto the senior panel and there was no reason we couldn't win Down or win Ulster.

“And at that stage, we hadn't won the Down championship in I don't know, 70 or 80 years. It was a new era coming through after some guys had retired, so it was great for us to win Ulster even for them who had just retired and put in so much but had just missed out.

“But that night was just one night you couldn't forget and you couldn't have anything but admiration for anybody who was doing that.”

Cut to present day, and Kilcoo boast a wealth of Down county titles, and have just scaled the Ulster club championship mountain after defeats in the 2012 and 2016 finals.

They are an hour away from an All-Ireland final, with Dublin champions Ballyboden St Enda’s standing in their way at Kingspan Breffni Park tomorrow.

“I suppose we’re in bonus territory, but at the same time we aren’t taking anything lightly,” says Branagan. “I’m sure if we take our A-game, we can play as well as any.

“[Winning Ulster] was just like someone had lifted a weight off your shoulders. We said, ‘How the hell had we never won one before?’. We wondered how we had never got over the line before, but it was just good to get it.

“It’s massive for the club, because it’s so small and tight-knit. Everyone knows everyone so everyone is on a high. Everywhere you go, it’s all anyone is talking about, so it’s great.”

McEntee’s words of wisdom played their part on a then young Branagan. Now at 36 and an elder statesman on the Kilcoo team, he has been similarly inspired this season by another man who has experienced more than his fair share of success.

Mickey Moran was installed as Kilcoo team manager fresh off the back of multiple Ulster club titles with Slaughtneil, and has one of the most distinguished managerial CVs in the game. His influence on the Down outfit in the past 12 months has been profound according to Branagan.

“Last year, we were iffing about coming back,” says Branagan about himself and fellow club stalwart, Conor Laverty, after the club had just saw a run of six successive Down Championships come to an end with defeat in the 2018 county final to Burren.

“Then we got Mickey Moran and everybody said, ‘Look, we’ll give it another big push’ because we weren’t really leaving the team where it should have been after getting beat in the county final.

“You talk about leaving the jersey in a better place, it wouldn’t have been in a better place if we’d have left last year. So it was definitely great to get the win in your twilight years.

“It’s hard to explain. It’s more about respect he has brought to the young boys, how everyone conducts themselves on and off the field. Even the Whatsapp group, it’s all about respect, and I think it’s good. He’s brought a really good manner with him.

“He's probably just come in with a different psyche for us. It was never mentioned once in the dressing room. It was always one game at a time. Even the [Ulster] final, it was never a final as such, you know what I mean?

“From day one, the first night he came and talked to us, he talked about, he said: 'I didn't need to be taking another team. I had more or less retired, but I know this team can do it and I know you want to do it so bad'.

“A few of us went and met him and explained how much we needed to get over the line and he said 'You have got it and we can do it no problem'. So, I suppose that was a big thing on its own, a man like that saying that.”

Branagan says it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what Moran does, but he brings up the example of the Derry native telling the Kilcoo squad about his relationship with former Leitrim footballer Philly McGuinness, who lost his life after an accidental collision while playing for his club in 2010.

“He was 26 when he was killed, and [Moran] talked about how much football meant to him,” says Branagan. “So we were trying to base ourselves on how he played and how he carried himself on and off the field.

“He was our inspiration to be like, so something like that was a past experience that he brought up of how special he was and how you should conduct yourself. Be like him, train like him.”

Now one game away from a date in Croke Park, Aidan Branagan and his Kilcoo teammates are vowing to pour everything into tomorrow’s hour against Ballyboden. Anything past that isn’t in the thought process.

“That's it. Well, it's back to the same again, we don't even concentrate on that. We're just solely concentrating on ourselves and training at the minute and trying to get everything right. And just whatever comes, comes.”