‘I’m surrounded by unbelievable people’ - Heffernan’s Ballina army retain Mayo senior crown

NIALL Heffernan takes credit for very little, even after guiding his beloved Stephenites to their first consecutive county title since 2004.

He sees himself as merely the driver of a machine fuelled by ‘45 guys working their socks off’, a large and dedicated backroom team and fans that love their football.

For a club with such a big pick, the Stephenites are, in the words of David Clarke, ‘a real small club’ with ‘a real small amount of people’ doing ‘a huge amount of work within the club.’

“I’m surrounded by unbelievable people. The players really wanted to go to another level, they wanted to go back-to-back. They put in that work, and they believed that they had the ability to do it,” Heffernan said.

Their crowning last Saturday was no coronation, but the result of five tough and often bloody championship battles.

“We had to dig it out, we were lucky against Ballaghaderreen, we were lucky in other games,” admitted Heffernan.

“Against Westport we robbed them in the last few minutes to make sure we topped the group, and if we didn’t do that, we wouldn’t have got a home draw and it might have been a whole different ball game.

“But when we had to dig it out, we dug it out. When we were four points down against Ballaghaderreen those guys stood up and were absolutely magnificent. I thought today they showed the quality that this Ballina team has. Last year wasn’t a great game, this year was a great game for us.”

The extra week of preparation afforded by Storm Ashley had no bearing on Ballina other than them changing their Friday session to Saturday.

Likewise, there was no tinkering to be done when the going was so good at half-time last Saturday night.

“The only way to defend a lead is to score more, so we went out to keep the scoreboard ticking over. Not to go mad gung-ho creating goal chances, but when the points were on, to take them and to work really, really hard,” said Heffernan.

“We’d won the first 30 minutes but we hadn’t won the whole game and we know how good Knockmore are. We know how proud they are and that they would come back at us. They did, but we showed a coolness, and going back to the question about being defending champions, it gives you that extra belief that you can dig it out.”

The Mayo News asked the former Mayo U-21 manager to put this latest victory down to just one thing. Heffernan responded by coming back to one thing he has mentioned from the outset.

“I’d put it down to having a great group of people around me on the sideline and a great group of men in that dressing room. That’s what it’s about because those guys have put in huge effort and made great sacrifices,” he said.

“Luke Doherty came back from Australia solely to play football for Ballina Stephenites, and when you’ve players like that, Ciarán Tracey flying home from Dubai, it’s incredible.”