It's the thing that every schoolboy or schoolgirl who kicks a football dreams of and tomorrow afternoon, the boys from Ballinrobe Community School will take to the field in Croke Park and look to come home as heroes with All Ireland winners medals in their back pocket. It's been a few months of hard graft and sweat on the training fields and in pitches across the provience for Damien Egan's charges, but they are standing just sixty minutes away from realising their dreams.
Standing in their way are St Ciaran's College, Ballygawley from Tyrone who will be no easy hurdle to jump over, the Tyrone men were pushed hard in their All Ireland semi-final win over St Mary's CBS, from Carlow having won their Ulster title in by six points against Our Lady's, Castleblayney on a score of 1-19 to 2-10 in early March. In that semi-final win they came out on top 1-16 to 3-9 after extra time with full forward Caoimhin O'Donnell kicking five points for them that day and wing forward Pascal Donaghy ending his day up with 1-3 to his name. One man who may look familiar to the travelling Ballinrobe faithful is Darragh Canavan - son of the Tyrone legend, Peter who operates in the St Ciaran's full forward line. The Tyrone men have plenty of other players who have impressed so far this year with Cathair Quinn at centre back and midfield pairing Daniel Miller and Joseph Oguz who scored (0-2 ) and (0-1 ) respectively in their All Ireland semi-final win.
Ballinrobe Community School aren't lacking in quality themselves as they've shown in both their Connacht final and All Ireland semi-final wins, a fortnight ago in Tullla in Clare they were dogged and determined seeing off Coachford Community School from Cork by three points in their final four clash with the dangerous duo of Tommy Conroy and Conor Heneghan both bagging 1-2 in that game. The third part of the Ballinrobe full forward line Cathal Slattery proved he was no slouch either, finishing that game with three points to his name.
At the back, Liam Hughes will be looked to, to marshal their defence from his centre-half back position, with Oran O'Malley directing things behind him at full back, in front of goalkeeper Cian Ferriter. In the middle of the park the duo of Nathan Moran and Darragh McGovern will be looking to provide the work in the engine room, while centre-half forward Evan O'Brien will have a key role in linking the play to their trio of inside danger men.
Tomorrow afternoon, they'll leave it all on the field and look to become legends in their school's history.
