Sligo's transformation from Division 2 whipping boys to a formidable championship outfit in 2006 was quite remarkable. Centre forward Mark Breheny agrees that the appointment of his older brother Tommy as manager marked a major turning point in the Yeats County's season. After four games and no points in Division 2B of the National Football League, Sligo fans would have been forgiven for believing the bad old days had just returned. Embarrassing defeats to Waterford and Tipperary in their first two outings led to Dominic Corrigan becoming the first managerial casualty of 2006. Former Sligo captain Tommy Breheny, who guided his club St. Mary's to a county senior football championship in 2001, agreed to act as caretaker manager while the county board sought a successor to Corrigan. Further defeats to Louth and Cavan followed before the corner was finally turned when Sligo stunned a previously unbeaten Westmeath with a seven-point victory at Markievicz Park. By then, promotion was beyond them but they finished the campaign in fine style with two more wins over Antrim and Wicklow. Breheny decided that he had started something he couldn't just leave and was appointed manager on a permanent basis. The run of victories ensured that Sligo's confidence returned in time for the championship. They gave a very creditable performance against Galway in the Connacht championship before succumbing to a four-point defeat. They bounced back to beat Down and Leitrim in the All-Ireland qualifiers before their season ended with a controversial defeat to Westmeath after extra-time. "While the manner of our defeat to Westmeath was very hard to take, we can still take a great deal of encouragement from how much we improved in a matter of months," says Yeats County centre forward Mark Breheny, who is a younger brother of the manager. "We had a lot of problems in the early part of the year the alarm bells were ringing after we lost our first couple of league games to Tipperary and Waterford. Dominic Corrigan wasn't getting the best out of us, but in fairness to him, he had a lot of injuries to deal with at the time. "Things were at an all-time low when Tommy and John Kent took over the management of the team. But they introduced a few new players and gradually, things started to turn around for us. We won our last three league games and that set us up nicely for the championship in which we acquitted ourselves well," he adds. Sligo faced a difficult trip to Pearse Stadium to take on beaten National League finalists Galway in their championship opener. But despite producing a gutsy performance, the Yeats County were beaten on a 0-19 to 1-12 scoreline with Michael Meehan accounting for 0-11 of the home side's tally. The Caltra sharpshooter was especially prominent in the first half, firing over 0-8 as the Tribesmen eased into a 0-13 to 0-5 lead. However, Sligo would have been much closer if they hadn't spurned a couple of goal-scoring opportunities. Teenage star David Kelly blasted wide with a goal at his mercy and then Paul McGovern saw his shot rebound from the crossbar. The visitors piled on the pressure in the early stages of the second half and they had the deficit down to manageable proportions before Galway put over a few scores of their own. Indeed, there was just a solitary score between the sides when Paul Taylor converted an injury-time penalty, but substitute Joe Bergin quickly replied with an insurance point for Galway. Sligo took plenty of encouragement from the display in Salthill, and it showed when they recorded a shock but fully merited 1-7 to 0-4 victory over Down in the first round of the All-Ireland qualifiers at Markievicz Park. Big Sean Davey gave the Yeats County a dream start when he blasted a goal in the fifth minute. Mark Breheny added three points to give Sligo a 1-3 to 0-3 interval lead. Down, who were fancied by many to go a long way in the championship, needed a good start to the second half but instead went nearly 30 minutes without registering a score as Sligo tagged on four more points to go seven clear. Paul Taylor, John McPartland, Davey and corner back Ross Donovan were all on target before Aidan Carr grabbed his side's only score of the half from a late '45'. Leitrim provided the opposition for Tommy Breheny's improving team in the second round of the All-Ireland qualifiers. Sligo hadn't beaten their neighbours in Carrick-on-Shannon since 1974, but they finally put that right with a hard-earned 1-7 to 0-9 victory. This derby match was closely contested throughout and was ultimately decided by a 12th minute goal from David Kelly. The Tubbercurry youngster reacted well to Sean Davey's knockdown, keeping his cool to give the black and whites the edge. Sligo went on to lead by 1-2 to 0-3 at the break, and they threatened to pull away until a late Leitrim surge which yielded points for James Glancy, Dermot Reynolds and Gavin McWeeney left just the minimum between the sides at the end. Sligo were now living up to their reputation as 'back-door specialists', but their winning run was ended in a controversial game against Westmeath at Markievicz Park. Sligo finished the match with 12 players following the dismissals of Eamonn O'Hara, Padraig Doohan and Brendan Egan in extra-time (Westmeath finished with 14), yet were only seconds away from pulling off an odds-defying victory. The home side were leading by 0-14 to 0-12 until Gary Dolan broke their hearts with a late goal. Despite the sweltering conditions, the game was played at a cracking pace and Sligo raced into a 0-4 to 0-0 lead after 16 minutes thanks to two points each from Breheny and Sean Davey. Dessie Dolan eventually opened Westmeath's account in the 17th minute and followed it with a free from the left. Sligo goalkeeper Philip Greene then took centre stage by producing two brilliant saves from Denis Glennon and Dessie Dolan. At half-time, the Yeats County led by 0-6 to 0-4 but Westmeath started the second half in blistering fashion, shooting five points without reply in the first 12 minutes to open up a 0-9 to 0-6 lead. Sligo showed great character, however, to come back and level the match through points from Eamonn O'Hara, Sean Davey, Kenneth Sweeney and Breheny. Dolan put Westmeath back in front from a free, only for McPartland to force extra-time with a superb equalizing point in the fourth minute of injury-time. Sligo's hopes suffered a major setback when O'Hara was wrongfully sent off in the first period of injury-time, but they still looked set to prevail when they went two points clear five minutes into the second period. However, Westmeath's numerical advantage finally told in the dying stages. O'Hara and Padraig Doohan subsequently had their red cards rescinded by the Central Disciplinary Committee, but it was scant consolation to Sligo who felt the outcome would have been different if they had stayed on the pitch. "We felt very hard done by. I've no doubt in my mind that we would have beaten Westmeath if Eamonn and Padraig hadn't been sent off in the wrong," Breheny ruefully reflects. "It was a very frustrating way to go out of the championship. And to see Westmeath go on and beat Galway made it even harder to take. As well as the three sendings off, Westmeath scored a point that was actually wide. Everybody in the ground saw it, except for the officials. "If we had beaten Westmeath, we would have played Kerry in the next round. That would have been something to look forward to, but unfortunately it wasn't to be." The 25-year-old St. Mary's clubman is confident that Sligo can continue to improve in 2007 and possibly end their 32-year wait for the Nestor Cup. "We have a new-look team and if we can keep going in the right direction, I think we could win a Connacht championship. The 1975 provincial success has become a bit of stigma for us, and we always seem to play our best football outside Connacht. "But we'd love to emulate the achievements of that team and I feel we have the potential to do that in the next year or two. We open our championship campaign against New York and if we beat them, we're in a Connacht semi-final and anything can happen after that. "Our first target next year, however, is to get promotion back to Division 1. We paid the price for a bad start last year and hopefully we'll be quicker out of the traps next year. We were in Division 1 for five or six years before being relegated in 2005, and we want to compete at that level again," he concludes. Tweet

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