‘Skinner’ Bradley hoping to complete Clones crossbar challenge

REWIND the clock 14 years. It’s summer in Clones. Eoin Bradley is hanging off the crossbar. His run and finish to the net, in a 1-5 tally, put the final nail in Armagh’s coffin.

It was an Ulster semi-final and he was on fire but it was his last game at the iconic venue. Injury hell came to visit in training, days before the final, derailing Derry’s title ambitions.

Sunday will mark a return when he steps off the bus with aspirations of helping Glenullin to a first-ever Ulster title.

“I hope I’ll be hanging off it next Sunday,” Bradley said with his trademark grin, seated at Glenullin’s media night ahead of their showdown with Cavan’s Cuchulainn’s.

“I’ve never played in an Ulster final before. I did my cruciate the week before it (2011 final) so hopefully I can stay injury-free now, and, next week, we’ll get over the line.”

With 1-17 to his name, ‘Skinner’ is their fifth highest scorer. Injury kept him out of training earlier in the season and he has been coming off the bench; part of what manager Michael O’Kane labelled his “bomb squad” to give them the required impact.

He chipped in with three points against Carrickmacross in the semi-final. Willie John Bradley won two important breaking balls. Fearghal Close hit a point and, like Willie John, had a hand in making Néill McNicholl’s goal that pulled them from the jaws of defeat.

“At the end of the day, I’m not 30 anymore,” he said. “I’m coming 42 now, on the 30th of December, but I still feel fit enough. I’d like a bit more than 20 minutes (off the bench), but at the end of the day, it’s worked so far. I keep asking him (manager) anyway, but, you know, that’s me.”

The Glenullin inside three of Conrad Mullan (3-30), Donal O’Kane and Ryan McNicholl (both with 4-19) have led their charge to Clones.

“They’ve been doing well, so I can’t really complain. You just have to wait your turn and, in every game, I’ve come on and I’ve done well too.

“I’ve contributed whenever the game’s broken up, the last 15 or 20 minutes, and it probably suits me a bit better.

“It has worked. Michael knows what he is doing. Next week, whatever happens, I don’t care if I don’t get any minutes. If we’ve the Ulster title, that’s all that matters.”

His brother Paddy stepped down as manager after last season and encouraged his cousin, Michael O’Kane, to take over. It wasn’t long until Eoin was on the phone too.

“He’s my cousin, but me and Michael are actually very good friends and I said to him, ‘if you take this team, I will win you a championship’.

“I didn’t think of hanging them up, but if the right man hadn’t come in, I don’t know whether I would have stayed or not.”

The rest is history and Bradley is full of praise for the management team’s effort, structure and how the committee have backed them. It’s all about Glenullin.

“I think that the older you get, the more you look forward to it and the more you appreciate it.

“I think that’s the way I feel now. I think every game is a bonus and that’s why I’d say I’m probably playing with more freedom now than I ever did because you know your career’s coming to an end.

“I enjoy every game. I’d just say, this year is extra special because it’s an Ulster final, a first for the club. The club’s been good to me and hopefully we can repay them next week by winning Ulster.”

Bradley is one of the four players, along with Eunan, John and Dermot O’Kane, remaining from the 2007 senior-winning team. They were managed by his father Liam ‘Baker’ and coached by current Clonoe manager Kevin Madden. Michael O’Kane was involved with the analysis.

It was a group built on a smattering of players coming in from sparsely populated underage teams. The Glenullin team now is totally different. Housing has helped numbers thrive in the local school.

A look around the facilities, and they want for nothing in a year they celebrated 100 years of the club.

“The last maybe seven or eight years, there has been a real influx of numbers,” Bradley said. “All the underage are playing A football and we’re bringing a lot of them through;

“Young boys like Ryan (McNicholl), Willie John and Cillian (Bradley), all of them, they’re all coming through now and there are more players coming behind them.”

Seated in Glenullin hall, the players are mingling. There is green and gold everywhere. Mugs of tea. Trays of goodies. It’s seated in perfect symmetry for Sunday’s 100th year anniversary mass. Times are good.

“Whenever you’re on a good run like we are having, it gives everybody a boost,” Bradley said. “The fact that it’s the first Ulster final for the club ever at senior level, there’s some buzz about it.

“You can see the colours. Then we’d the Gala Dinner in our 100th year too, so that means a lot. If we get the job done next Sunday, it’d really top it off.”

There is still the elephant in the room, that being their 2023 semi-final defeat to Ballyhaise, a team now managed by Bradley’s cousin, Gerard O’Kane, who now resides in the land of Breffni.

“It hurt the players,” Bradley said, with the regret of Ballyhaise kicking themselves out of an Ulster final against a Cullyhanna team who later landed the All-Ireland.

“It just shows you where you could end up. The fact is, we played so well and then, in the second half, just for five or ten minutes, they just got on top of us. We probably thought the game was over but Ballyhaise are a good side and we’re probably cross at ourselves.

“We’ve got that experience too,” he said, adding to the references of having to hang tough in all three of the Derry Intermediate final wins.

“I think that comes from years of when you’re at underage, growing up, you have a never-say-die attitude.

“I think that’s the whole vibe throughout the club, just work as hard as you can and the results will come.

“Even when we won the (senior) championship back in 2007, it went to a draw. So, all through my career, that’s ingrained into us, so it helps.

“The last three or four years, how many games have we won by a point or went to extra-time? So, it’s a good trait to have, but hopefully we can just go and get over the line next Sunday. It will all be worth it; it would top everything off.”