The weekend they felled Corofin was a very Connacht affair. Ballina is blue-blooded when it comes to sport anyway, its storytellers well-versed in old yarns about basketball trips and rugby weekends. They don't make strange with victory in that part of Mayo. But when the All-Ireland club champions rolled across the border to take on the local team in the Connacht Championship, the community paid heed. Over 3,000 took in the Saturday game in James Stephens Park on a soft November Saturday and when the inevitable happened - a stalemate - the local publicans shifted extra kegs as the ramifications of the following day's replay were tossed around.

David Brady, Stephenites' rangy midfield player, remembers the intensity of it all: "I got out of bed on the Sunday morning and just didn't think I'd be able to play another game. The physical abuse we meted out to one another was something you'd rarely witness. It comes with border rivalry - not necessarily nasty but, you know, earnest."

The town heaved that morning and by the time the players planted themselves down on the dressing room bench they had pushed the aches and bruises to the periphery.

"It was just such a special occasion to play Corofin two days running on a game of such scale. Once we took to the pitch adrenaline took over. It was only by the following Tuesday that my body began to protest fully. That was something I wouldn't want to repeat."

He reckons there was a sense of destiny about that replay - Ballina had fashioned a 0-9 to 0-3 lead at half-time but then lost Kenneth Golden, who was sent off, and were forced to nail down the hatches as Corofin fought desperately for life.

"Even when we went down to 14 men there was just an unspoken feeling that we weren't going to be stopped. And when Martin McGrath hit a difficult free to give us a two-point lead, I just knew. There was still five minutes left but you could see it in their eyes, they were gone."

Given the strangeness of the fixture set-up and the fact that Corofin were reigning club champions, Ballina Stephenites received astonishingly little kudos for their efforts. They continued to whisper their way through the province, scraping past a feisty Eastern Harps side and then over-ran Roscommon Gaels on the infamous Sunday of December 13th when an unprecedented downpour rendered the club competition something of a lottery. But Ballina had won their first ever Connacht title - on home turf - and now face Doonbeg in an All-Ireland semi-final.

"Yeah, it's a cliche, but probably true to say that being at home was worth an extra two points to us. Two of my brothers play on the team and it was a great source of pride to us to bring three provincial medals into the one house."

Are expectations too high for the game against Doonbeg? "People don't expect that much and that does lift some of the pressure. I think the same will apply against Doonbeg - everyone knows we're there but probably don't expect us to go much further."

Like so many on this team he is a talented athlete and very serious about his game. Although he whiled his youth away playing for Ballina rugby club, raw ability propelled him onto the county u-21 teams under Martin Carney and he partnered John Casey at midfield on teams that made it to All-Ireland finals on successive years (1993, 1994).

In September 1996, he ran out onto Croke Park shoulder to shoulder alongside Liam McHale in the All-Ireland final against Meath. The westerners were unforgettably vanquished through a crazy blitz of fists, an odd-ball equaliser and tough football. A year later, Brady broke his leg.

"It was painfully slow. They put in pins and a brace which ended up getting infected. That set me back and they removed them eventually. There was no lasting damage. I can even kick the occasional point now," he laughs.