It's make or break time for Brady and Ballina

Ian O'Riordan talks to one of Mayo's best players who thought he was delaying a trip to Australia for just three weeks . . . three months later he is in a Connacht final.

So it's closing time on the GAA season, and by now David Brady should be sitting on a beach in Sydney and his only task for the day to decide between surfing or a bit of football. His home town of Ballina, plus any talk of championship football, should be a world away.

Instead Brady is still thinking only about football, and Sunday's Connacht club final against Galway champions Killererin. His club, Ballina Stephenites, had their last training session the other night, which included hurdles and ladder drills.

When they tried to move the ladders they realised they were frozen to the pitch. It was two degrees below zero.

"Yeah, I was asking myself 'what am I doing here?' " says Brady. "But when I run out on Sunday I'll know exactly what I'm doing here. And there's nowhere else in the world I'd rather be."

Brady is known as one of Mayo's best footballers of the last decade, but more recently for his wanderlust. He spent 2002 in Australia, returned in April of 2003, but left again for the whole of last winter. Several months ago he'd bought another plane ticket again destined for Sydney.

"Once the summer was done the plan was to wait around for a week or so, and then head back. I never thought much about the club championship, but the week after the All-Ireland we were straight back into that. And it was hard to turn your back on it, because you'll always have to come back to your own town and club again, and I wouldn't have liked to have left again without giving it something.

"And especially because of our manager Tommy Lyons. He persuaded me to stay, and I said I'd give it a go for the county title, because that meant just sticking around for another three weeks. Of course that's turned out to be nearly three months.

"But it's great to be in another Connacht final after 1998. It's only my second time, and I think only the third time for the club. We've won two county titles in succession now, but most of this team are out to win their first Connacht title. That's not an occasion you easily pass up on.

"And you want to be at least sure the team is at full strength. I know I came back for last year's final, but then left again, and the team were beaten in the first round of the Connacht championship, and suppose feel a little like they let themselves down."

After Sunday, however, Brady's immediate future will at least be clear. He's been postponing his flight every second or third week, but will soon have his mind made up for him: "Realistically it's make or break time on Sunday. If we win we're not out again for two months, so the Australia thing will have to be thrown in the bin. If we lose, I'll go. It's a simple as that."

Half of Brady longs to be back in Australia. Last time he was there he ended up playing football with the Sydney team, Clan na Gael, while also being paid to train their senior team, and a women's team. Every few weeks he'd hit the road and go travel Australia.

"It was perfect. I know it's not a life you could live for 10 years, but I would like the opportunity to do it for another year. But I've no plans to settle just anywhere yet, and most days I don't decide what I'm doing until I wake up. And if I go back it could be for six months or six years."

His new-found commitment to his club has also helped eased the pain of the heavy All-Ireland defeat to Kerry last September. There was much debate when Brady was left off the starting 15, although he was quickly introduced for Fergal Kelly after 25 minutes. Like his club-mate and fellow midfielder Ronan McGarrity, the Ballina experience has been hugely sobering.

"The two of us have an opportunity now to get back to Croke Park, and for us winning the county title has already eased the pain. Winning a Connacht title would go even further.

"But we honestly haven't dwelt on what happened in the All-Ireland. We spent a week drowning our sorrows, and next thing we were back preparing for a club championship. It was hard to go out in front of a few hundred people instead of 80,000, but once I got that game out of my system I felt a lot better for it."

As for his future with Mayo, Brady is not so certain. Right now he's 100 per cent focused on the club, and only when this run finishes will he think again about the county.

Yet having just turned 30, he's been on the road now for over a decade. He left in 2002 with the idea of getting a break from football, and instead ended up winning a North American championship medal in Chicago, then an All-Australian league medal, and then the county medal with Ballina last year.

"I still played an awful lot of football while I was away. But I don't think I ever enjoyed it as much. There's such a high commitment at intercounty level that it's harder to enjoy now. The one year I did take a break I ended up winning three different championships on three different continents."

That Killererin provide the opposition on Sunday is fitting, with the Galway champions sprinkled with county players - most notably the Joyce family - motivated by the same sense of local commitment as Brady. Something you'd never find away from home.