BEN BROSNAN is cradling his player-of-the-month award like a kid who’d just won his first prize at school, and understandably so.
Few footballers made a bigger breakthrough this summer than Brosnan, and although he didn’t actually win anything, an All Star nomination and monthly award for last May offers some consolation.
Indeed, Brosnan was the only Wexford player listed among the 2011 All Star nominations, and while he wasn’t overly enamoured by that (“I thought Ciarán Lyng might have got a nomination as well,” he said), there were plenty of positives to reflect on.
He very nearly ended up as top scorer for championship 2011 with his 0-32, before Colm Cooper eclipsed him by a single point, his 1-3 in the All-Ireland final defeat to Dublin bringing his tally to 2-27.
Yet, Brosnan made a real name for himself after several seasons on the fringes of the Wexford panel, his dashing forward runs made all the more conspicuous by his long blonde hair.
“Well, I didn’t really do anything different this year. I suppose I got the chance and I just took it. I had a good game against Offaly and I just built on that as I went along. I’ve been on the panel since 2008, and the last few years I was playing in the league and the O’Byrne Cup but I couldn’t get into the championship team. Maybe it was because Matty Forde wasn’t there this year that I got my chance, but Jason Ryan stuck by me, gave me my chance, and I took it.”
Speaking of Ryan, the news on Monday night that he would continue for a fifth season as Wexford manager, and thus resisted a potential move to take over the hurlers in the native Waterford, came as considerable relief to supporters of Wexford football, including Brosnan.
“It is great news for Wexford. He will be hurting at the way that we went out last year, so we can all push on together. If he didn’t stay it could have taken us two years back. We would be looking for a manager and who knows he might not have got on as well with the players as Jason has.”
The challenge for Brosnan now is to live up to the greater expectations in 2012, but he feels Wexford will have plenty of motivation, given how close they came to beating Dublin, and eventual exit to Limerick after a still-disputed point.
“No one still knows if it was a point or not. It still hasn’t been cleared up. It was a disappointing way to end the year but it happens in sport I suppose.”
