From Perth to Pairc Sean, David Bruen a winner on both sides of the world

When someone as experienced as David Bruen tells you “I’m probably not making any sense, it’s unreal”, it gives you a small inkling of what last Sunday’s Connacht Gold Leitrim SFC triumph means for Leitrim Gaels.

It was Leitrim Gaels’ first ever Senior Championship crown but David is in a unique position of having won two Championships this year, first helping St Finbarr’s win the Western Australian Championships but I imagine last Sunday’s triumph over Ballinamore Sean O’Heslins topped the lot!

“It's unreal to be honest, 27 years without one and now two in the last month!,” was David’s reaction when quizzed about his decision to travel home for the concluding stages of the championship, “It's more for the lads that have been here all year. I've only really come in the last five weeks, but coming in, training with them, it was an eye-opener. They were absolutely flying it, there was some work going on behind the scenes. I'm just delighted for them and delighted for Mal and all the management. It's a savage day for the club.”

Watching the Gaels from the far side of the world over the last three seasons has been tough on those away from home: “It was hard. Three years ago we kind of lost a lot of boys to Australia but the management didn't panic. They rebuilt the team, especially last year, just to stay up in senior. That was massive, that was huge for us and then they really pushed it on this year. I'm probably not making any sense of it, it's unreal - it'll take a few days to let this sink in.”

The former Leitrim captain also gave an insight into how the Gaels were determined not to let the chance slip by them: “There's a lot of talk about that you have to lose one to win one, but we didn't buy into that. It's another game, it was the exact same circumstances in our eyes to the Mohill game. Just another game, we didn't really let the occasion get the better of us. We came out on top and it was mighty.”

REACTION: LEITRIM GAELS CAPTAIN AIDAN FLYNN REFLECTS ON HISTORIC DAY FOR CLUB

Analysing the game, David was wary of the threat posed by Paul Honeyman and Tom Prior in Ballinamore’s attack: “They're class players. Probably if they got a bit more ball, they might have got a few more scores but I think they got a lot of their scores from frees which obviously we're not happy with.

“But we limited Tom and Paul in the second half to not that much ball going into them so that was massive for us because they're two quality players. I think we got the better of them in the midfield. If they got more ball into their forwards, they probably would have done a bit more damage, but they couldn't. 

“I think we got better around the middle third and that was kind of the building block for the forwards getting on the scoresheet. The boys around the middle, in around the breaks, that's what we said before the game, the breaks were always going to be the winning and losing of the game.”