With the Ryan Cup well underway and the club season coming to an end for most players, Mayo and DCU footballer Brian Reape is looking to push on with the DCU footballers after “disappointing” seasons the last two years for the Sigerson team.
After two wins to Ulster University Jordanstown and St Mary’s and a loss to Queen’s University the DCU Dóchas Éireann footballers have qualified for the quarter finals of the Ryan Cup.
“It’s been disappointing the last two years for the footballers,” said Reape.
“With the fresher footballers and the hurlers doing good it definitely puts that added pressure on,” he added.
Reape lamented the one-point loss to Queens on the road, in their second match after they had blitzed Jordanstown at home in the DCU Sports Grounds in a match where Reape got two goals.
“We were disappointed. We thought we were in a good place after the UUJ game, but college football is difficult on the road. Home advantage really makes a big difference in these competitions,” said Reape.
“We’re in two competitions this year the Ryan Cup and the Sigerson. We have to aim for silverware in both,” he added.
Reape has spent his last two summers in America playing with McBride’s club in Chicago this summer alongside fellow Mayo teammates Diarmuid O’Connor, Conor Loftus and Michael Plunkett.
McBrides won the Chicago championship with Reape firing well from corner forward for the side throughout the summer championship.
Due to Mayo’s early departure from the championship this season Reape and players like him stateside faced a quick turnaround for the club championship back home.
“Last year with Mayo being in the final, I would’ve had three weeks to get back into the (Moy Davitt’s) team,” said Reape.
“I came back around a similar time this year and I had six days before our opener against Knockmore,”
“I trained in Athlone before the Knockmore clash and thankfully I was lucky enough to get back in,” he added.
The Moy Davitt’s team were knocked out of the Mayo Senior Championship after meeting the eventual county Champions, Ballintubber, at the quarter final stage.
“We won an U21 in 2013 and a minor title in 2014. There’s an older crop of players there too so we’re trying to hold that group together at the moment,” said Reape.
The early nature of the club championship in Mayo this year meant that McBride’s lost all their players before the North American championships and had to pull out from the competition.
“I came back around the 24th of August and the North Americans were two weeks later. It would have been nice to play in,” said Reape.
Reape is among 100 Mayo players called in to James Horan’s trials in Beacon last weekend and he looked forward to the challenge the trials would bring.
“I haven’t really been told too much about it only that it’s in Beacon on Saturday and Sunday,” said Reape.
“Lads like Colm Boyle, who has been on the team for years will have to do the trials too, which is good in a way because everyone will have to prove themselves,”
“Its going to be challenging and anyone could have a bad ten- or twenty-minute patch in a game, so the stakes are high,” he added.
John Morley
Image Credit: David Maher / Sportsfile