‘We came up a little bit short last year, and we just weren't letting that happen again,’ Sorohan.

“It has been years in the making,” says Adrian Sorohan, who captained Allen Gaels to victory on Sunday evening, alongside joint-captain and Man of the Match Radek Oberwan, winning the club's first championship in over 20 years.

There was never really much doubt as their team stormed to a convincing fifteen points over Dromahair in Páirc Seán MacDirmuida in their second intermediate final appearance in a row.

Dramatically falling short in last year’s final, after carrying an eight-point lead into the last seven minutes of the contest against Melvin Gaels, felt like a death, says Sorohan.

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That defeat was something that could break and scar a team. They had to accept and put to bed before they found new motivation and focus to come back again, according to Sorohan. “It probably galvanised us”, he says. “We came up a little bit short last year, and we just weren't letting that happen again.” 

Anyone who watched Allen Gaels as they dominated the intermediate will have noticed the relentlessness with which they approached their games, feverishly pressing for the next score and next turnover even when games were effectively over and running up the score.

“We were favourites for a reason,” says Sorohan, who paid tribute to the vast talent that they have in their squad, especially with the addition of corner-forward Kieran Kilcline this season.

Though he admitted that the title of favourites – deserved as it might be – brought with it an extra challenge to navigate.

“I felt there was a lot of pressure on us, and I suppose there is nothing you can do about that. I don't know if that is the Irish mentality, but it is always easier to go in as underdogs.”

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They needed to be alert to the threats that Dromahair posed: “Dromahair all year have been slow starters, but they have kept in it, you saw that game against Drumkeeran. They are a brilliant side as well, like… They are great footballers like and they know how to grind out a victory. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for them today. I suppose we kind of got on top of them there.”

The club will return to senior football next season with a goal to stay there and more, says Sorohan, citing Ballinamore's fall to intermediate before returning to the top rank of Leitrim football in 2016, which has led them to become one of the top powers there since.

“Hopefully we can replicate that and come back a lot stronger and competing at senior football,” says Sorohan.

But first Allen Gaels will look to make their mark in the Connacht Championship semi-final on the 14th of November, meeting Strokestown, a town that Sorohan knows well, as he works there as a teacher.

“I just want to get through the next couple of weeks, thanks be to God we are on mid-term next week, but hopefully I won't get tripped up in the hallways now or anything like that.”

“I’ll be watching my car, checking the brakes, stuff like that,” he adds, laughing.

A Connacht campaign is welcomed, but it is very much the secondary goal with the first now in the bag. “At this stage now, it is bonus territory, the pressure is off in some regards, you just go out and give it a whack, it is a game of football at the end of the day, and whoever wins wins.”