My Club and I: Robert Hennelly

Breaffy GAA are a senior football club located in Breaffy, which is situated about three miles from the large town of Castlebar, Co. Mayo.

By Arthur Sullivan

Breaffy is located on the N60, the main road from Castlebar to Claremorris, and for many years the club lived completely in the shadow of its much more illustrious rivals Castlebar Mitchels.

However, having reached the Mayo Senior Football Championship final last season for the first time ever in their history, Breaffy are a coming force in the county, and they play in the Mayo SFC quarter-finals this weekend against Knockmore.

The origins of Breaffy GAA stretch back to the early years of the 20th century, when as part of a combined side with the local Keelogues club, they are recorded as having faced a team from Kilmeena in 1906. However, the Connacht Telegraph match report is not complimentary of Breaffy. "The Breaffy men showed a great lack of practice and appeared to be unaccustomed to one another on the field," it read.

The present club was founded in 1953. Breaffy played at junior and intermediate level in Mayo for many years, but they have been an established senior club in Mayo for over a decade now, and recent success at minor level, combined with the team's run to the county senior final last year, has raised hopes at the club to levels unseen before in their history.

Robert Hennelly is one of four Mayo senior footballers from Breaffy, along with the three O'Shea brothers - Séamus, Aidan and Conor. As well as those senior players, Breaffy have had a number of representatives on Mayo minor and U21 panels in recent times.

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Michael Hall, Liam Irwin and Matthew Ruane won All-Ireland medals with the Mayo minors in 2013, while Gary Walsh, Dylan Cannon and Colm Dravins were involved with the Mayo U21 team this season.

This is a time of plenty for Breaffy GAA. Their facilities, having been developed greatly in recent years, are now on a par with the top senior clubs in the county. Their pitch is at Ballyheane, and they play in blue and white.

For more about Breaffy, visit www.breaffy.gaa.ie

(Breaffy's location within Co. Mayo)

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Q: Tell us exactly where Breaffy is and what the lie of the land is like there...

A: It's basically a kind of a suburb of Castlebar because the borders between Breaffy and Castlebar are quite undefined. However, when it comes to football, Breaffy is very much its own place! It's actually quite a big parish, and a very big football parish. The population in the area has grown hugely over the last 15 years. So we're lucky because we have a growing, vibrant club there.

Q: What has Breaffys's progression been like over your lifetime? Have they been a senior club as far back as you can remember?

A: No, it hasn't always been a senior club, in fact it was junior and intermediate for a good while. It was around the start of the 2000s that we first got up to senior level, and although we went down to intermediate level one year, the last 10 years we have been solidly a senior club, and a good senior club. Last year we got to our first Mayo Senior Football Championship final. It was actually our first time getting past the quarter-finals ever, so it was a fair achievement. We probably put in our best performance in the county final against (Castlebar) Mitchels, but we're a young side and we probably got there a year too early. This year we've learned a lot and have brought in a few more young players.

Q: Can you remember your first time playing with the Breaffy senior team?

A: I can. It was back in 2006, I was only 16. So it's hard to believe but this is actually my ninth season playing senior football. I was lucky enough to get on at the time. Jim O'Shea - father of Aidan, Séamus and Conor - gave me the nod. He was reluctant enough to give it to me at the same time when I think back, because in the goalkeeping position, a bit of age is always good but I remember quite well it was the second group game of the championship he sent me in against Mitchels. I had a good game and I haven't looked back since!

Q: Goalkeeper is a position that in some respects demands seniority as you have to have a certain presence both to your teammates and to the opposition. It must have been quite the challenge to be a senior club goalkeeper in Mayo aged just 16...

A: Yeah it was. I was lucky that there was always a good blend in that the older guys were always really sound and you had fellas like Marty McNicholas there who would bring you in and they'd be sound to you, they wouldn't be resistant to seeing young lads coming in. I was lucky as well that I had the real cockiness of a 16-year-old that got over some of my lack of experience. That was good too and it brought something different to the goalkeeping position.

In Breaffy as a club in general, I have won a minor A county title and a few senior leagues and stuff like that, and we got to a county final last year, so things are looking good. This year we had four on the Mayo senior panel, I think we had four on the minor panel and three or four on the Mayo U21 panel so we have been producing county players consistently for the last 10 years. And there's some better footballers coming up behind them as well so it's exciting for the club.

Q: What has been the progression of the club since you broke onto the senior team in 2006?

A: The progression of the whole club in that time has been brilliant. Structurally, there was a need to do up the pitch and to get the surroundings done, the dressing rooms and so on. It was quite a bad set-up at one time but the club did a really good job and have put in a really good centre there. It's definitely brought a more solid focal point to the community. Then from that, the football started to improve as well. I know the development is only one thing but it definitely feeds into it because it feeds into the image of the club. We weren't just the junior team out the road anymore, we were a senior team and what came from that then was that we won a minor title in 2006 and we had a very strong minor team that year, with Aidan O'Shea on it and so on.

The following year we had about eight lads on the Mayo minor panel. I don't think any of them started looking back, but two of them probably should have started but at the same time, we were showing the right progression as a club because we wouldn't have had a huge history of minors before that really. Since then, the nucleus of that team stuck around and now they are the nucleus of our senior team. We won another minor title last year and we have gotten used to competing at the top level at minor and U21 level. That has led into a nice boost into what we had, which was a good senior team.

Good players who had got us up from intermediate level, brilliant club players, and then the likes of Marty McNicholas who had county ability, and we just seemed to put together what now is a very strong panel. That's what you need to win in the county. That's what Castlebar Mitchels had last year, that's what Ballintubber had before. That's what we are starting to put together now. So it's very exciting times for Breaffy and there's a great buzz around the place. We're in the quarter-final of the championship now (Breaffy face Knockmore this Sunday). A couple of years ago that would have been such a big deal but now it's normal and it's part of the expectation.

The Breaffy parish is right between Ballintubber and Castlebar, so there's a trio of clubs there that have the ability to win the Mayo title. It's great for west Mayo football because for the last 20 years it was often clubs from north Mayo, the likes of Crossmolina, Knockmore and Ballina, so it has been a switch to west Mayo football. Our three clubs have been the three to the fore, which is good for west Mayo as a whole, but even better for us as individual clubs because you have that rivalry and that bite. You would have been up for Mitchels last year in the All-Ireland Club final but at the same time you're thinking 'Sure we could be there as well'.

Q: What do you think you need to do to achieve what Castlebar achieved last season, having come up short against them in last year's county final?

A: I think the things that we needed to change have changed. Now looking at our team, we haven't got the same team - there have been a lot of changes. We've brought younger lads in who have added a lot of energy. Last year, we didn't have Conor O'Shea properly for the whole year, we didn't have Peter Dravins for the whole year. They are two definite starters for us but we still got to the county final. We have had a big boost with the minors now too as we had two lads on the Mayo All-Ireland winning minor team last year and we had one on the subs as well. They weren't big players for us last year but they are this year.

So the things we needed to do, such as develop our panel, we have done. We have a good management structure in place this year, they're young and they have everything that we need as well. We had an excellent management team last year and the new team have built on what they did. So we've definitely put the structures in place to put ourselves in contention for another county title.

(Aidan O'Shea in action for Breaffy in last year's Mayo SFC Final against Castlebar Mitchels)

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Q: Clubs very often become associated with families, and it's hard to talk about Breaffy these days without talking about the O'Sheas. It must be nice as a goalkeeper to have Aidan and Séamus to aim at?

A: I make them look good sometimes, you know!! Ah no, I kind of take it for granted. Now, sometimes you'd be looking for a kick-out and they'd win it and link up and get a score, and you kind of laugh to yourself thinking, 'How lucky am I to have two of the best midfielders in the country on my club team together?' Then you throw in Conor there as well, who is exceptionally talented, with a different skillset to the two lads. He's more attacking and he's good on breaking ball. Every club needs players like that. Ballintubber have Jason Gibbons, Castlebar have Barry Moran and we have the three O'Sheas. So teams that come up against us know they have to beat the O'Sheas first before they can worry about the other players coming behind that who people don't even think about.

It's great, because as the O'Sheas demand so much attention, it gives other lads scope to perform and to concentrate on their jobs. It's great at club level to have that and it's great for me to know that when I'm training with Mayo, I'm half training with Breaffy as well because I'm practising with the O'Sheas.

Q: Tell us about Jim O'Shea, the father of the boys.

A: Jim is from Killorglin in Kerry. He is a selector with the senior team now. He took a year off last year but he's back in now. He knows the club inside out. For a man who's not from Breaffy, he's a pillar of the club. So thankfully the O'Sheas decided to settle in Breaffy! I think Seamie might have trained once with Castlebar Mitchels when they first moved over. And they had been in Westmeath before that, so we were lucky! But I have learned a lot from Jim. I would always have been a bit aggressive and cocky when I was younger and he helped to settle me, in a good way. Even though sometimes it wasn't what you wanted to hear, he always would guide you. He has done a lot behind the scenes for players and he continues to contribute to underage development both at county and club level.

The whole O'Shea family are very important to the club. The mother Sheila is a teacher in the national school and their sister Maeve is young and she is very talented at everything she tries, so she is another one coming up, whether it's at Ladies Football or in athletics or something. In Breaffy there are a lot of families that have moved in who weren't originally from the area, and they have brought so many different qualities and in my opinion, it's been the best thing that has ever happened in the area because they do bring a sense of youth and enthusiasm to the place. You have young parents and kids coming in and it has just changed the community for the better, and it is reaping rewards for the football club as well.

(Liam Irwin, Breaffy, lifts the Tom Markham Cup after Mayo's All-Ireland MFC Final win in 2013)

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Q: Do you have a family connection with the club or are you the first Hennelly to play for Breaffy?

A: Apart from my brother, I am yeah. Because my parish is actually a different parish, but I went to school in Breaffy. My parish is Keelogues and I am actually a very proud Keelogues man. I'm a proud Breaffy GAA man but I'm also a Keelogues man. There is a club there too called Parke Keelogues Crimlin, but I've always played with Breaffy since a very young age because all my friends were from there and I live closer to Breaffy and stuff like that. It's interesting because I have a strong affiliation with Parke as well and I would always keep an eye on how they are doing but Breaffy is very much my club. It's like anything, what separates parishes isn't borderlines. It's the club. I know there are issues in my own club with regard to the parish lines of Ballintubber and Castlebar. If you are from the border in particular, the stauncher you are it seems.

Q: You mentioned that Breaffy have a lot of players who represented Mayo this season at minor and U21 level. Could you go through them?

A: With the Mayo minors, we have Matthew Ruane, Gary Walsh, Dylan Cannon and Colm Dravins. With the U21s we have Michael Hall, Liam Irwin, Tommy Reilly and there are other players who have been in and around both panels. Then we have players like David Gavin, our full-back, he played minor and U21 for Mayo and has the ability to play senior, Peter Dravins played underage for Mayo too and also could play senior. Guys like Rory Martin...we have a lot of players who have experience playing with Mayo at some stage, including the oldest lads on our team. It's so important for us as a club to have lots of good experience because with the four of us on the Mayo senior panel, combined with the minor lads, we're missing seven or eight lads from every training session and that can be tough on the club during the early months of the year.

We then come back in and take the places of players who have been there all season. But at the club, they are hugely supportive of their county players and I know not every club is like that. It can be a strain on a club, especially a smaller club, but they are so strong-minded with regard to our minor, U21 and senior county players. I have huge faith in what's coming up behind me as well, that they will take the Breaffy club to another level, because of what they are doing with Mayo and the benefits that can have for the club. So with 11 players involved for Mayo this year at minor, U21 and senior level, it's an exciting time for what would be seen as a small club in the county.

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Breaffy v Knockmore, Mayo SFC Quarter-Final, Sunday, 2pm at Elverys MacHale Park, Castlebar