Alan Brogan reveals the two things that he regrets in his football career

Lee Costello

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“We maybe thought that we had the job done.”

Alan Brogan enjoyed an incredibly successful career with Dublin and his club St Oliver Plunkett’s, but there are still two regrets that haunt him.

The former Dublin star won everything that you can possibly win in game at county level, both as a team and individually, and at club level, he was a part of maybe one of the best Plunkett teams ever.

However, despite getting to three county finals with his club, the three-time All-Ireland winner and his brothers, Bernard and Paul Brogan, who were also a part of the team, couldn’t jump that final hurdle.

Speaking on the latest episode of the GAA Hour, Brogan explains why this is one of his biggest regrets.

“I haven’t got very many regrets in my football career, but not winning the county club final – not for myself, more so for the club, a lot of people put a lot of effort into that senior team over the years at Plunkett’s and not getting over the line for them is one of my regrets.”

On the county scene, Brogan was the main man for many years under Pillar Caffrey, and when Pat Gilroy came in, there was a crop of new young players ready to step up and help him push on for All-Ireland titles.

However, before Gilroy and Jim Gavin came in, Dublin were a team famous for falling short and missing out on football’s biggest day.

“Losing the ’06 semi-final to Mayo – they’re probably the only two regrets that stick out in my head, and again not for myself in ’06 more so that group of players who had came through under Tommy Lyons, and then managed by Pillar Caffrey.

“It was a very close-knit tight group, and that team not getting to an All-Ireland final, and we mightn’t have won it, but not getting an opportunity to play in the final for Pillar and his management team, is another regret.”

That game in 2006 was famous for many reasons, and it was headline news before a ball was even thrown in because of the incident that happened during the warm up.

Mayo decided to run out and warm up at the Hill 16 side, to try and antagonise the Dubs and gain a mental edge, so the Boys in Blue marched straight through them and chaos ensued.

Afterwards, when Mayo went eventually won the game by the tightest of margins, pundits blamed the antics beforehand as the reason behind Dublin’s downfall.

“People always ask us if that affected us, but we actually started that game really well, we had went four or five points up, so it definitely wasn’t what happened before the game that beat us, it was probably more so a bit of naivety.

“We maybe thought that we had the job done, we were seven up with 20 minutes to go, you would expect to have the job done, but kind of like Mayo, you can never write them off.

“We got caught on the hop, obviously there was that great score by Ciaran McDonald. Andy Moran got a goal for them as well to get them back into it, and yeah that was disappointing.”

Listen to the full conversation with Alan Brogan as he joined Niall McIntyre and Lee Costello in studio for the latest episode of the GAA Hour.

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