A QUARTER of a century after playing for Shamrock Rovers in a final they lost to UCD, Liam Buckley had his cup winner’s medal yesterday. “If somebody had told me it was going to be 25 years before I got it, I wouldn’t have believed them,” he said.

That he would get it as the manager of and driving force behind a start-up club on the northside of the city might have struck him as even more incredible back in 1984. But there he was, having seen Sporting Fingal triumph back at the ground where they beat Shamrock Rovers in the quarter-finals a couple of months ago.

Buckley has played much more of a part in his side’s success than most managers do, but he was more than happy to share the credit with his players, most of whom, he insists, will be with him in the top flight next season.

“People are always talking about the likes of Alan Kirby, Gary O’Neill, Stephen Paisley and Eamon Zayed, but there are an awful lot of unsung heroes at this club,” said Buckley.

He paid particular tribute to Colm James for the quality of the penalty he converted under considerable pressure five minutes from time yesterday.

“There’s 22 or so in the squad and every single one of them has played their part in the club’s success this season.

“They’re a great bunch with loads of talent, and most of them were signed with a view to the longer term. They’re young and have a great attitude. A lot of managers sign players to win promotion, then strip it all back and look to start again once they’ve achieved it, but most of these lads will be playing here again next year.

“They’re good, but I think they’ll improve and I think they’ll thrive on playing against the bigger teams.”

A cup run that also included a comfortable semi-final defeat of Bray Wanderers suggests that they’ll be competitive next season, but Buckley must now get to work on completing the paperwork because very few have actually been signed up for next year.

“Well, until the start of the week we didn’t even now what division we were going to be playing in, but now that we do we’ll look to sort everything out quite quickly.”

One player who looks like he won’t be at Sligo next year is striker Raffaele Cretaro, who has been outstanding for Paul Cook’s side this season, but now looks virtually certain to complete a move to either Bohemians or Shamrock Rovers.

“That could have been my last game, I’ll be dead honest with you,” he said afterwards. “I’ll decide now over the next week or two what I’ll be doing, but it could well have been my last game for Sligo.”

If it was, then it will have been a bitterly disappointing way for his Rovers career to end. The 28-year-old was a key figure for his side as they dominated the match for stretches and played a major part in the goal that looked to have set them on the way to victory after 57 minutes.

A neck injury forced him off not long after and, having missed the Dublin club’s equaliser while he was receiving treatment, he watched in dismay as O’Neill grabbed his side’s last-gasp winner.

“It’s disappointing,” he said. “We prepared well for it. But that’s football. These things happen – a late goal, a late penalty, whatever. We could have ended the season on a high but it wasn’t to be.”

His manager was less philosophical but reckoned that Cretaro’s injury had been the key event in the game.

“Losing Raffaele was a massive blow,” Cook said. “When we are without players of his quality it hits us hard, and we lost one of our key players.

“With eight minutes left we were in a great position but they got that lucky break with the penalty.

“Nobody remembers the losers in cup finals, though, so we will go away and lick our wounds.”