Only one man to go looking for after a game like that. Tony Kelly scored 1-6, all but one of it from play. That one free wasn't even on his schedule – Davy Fitzgerald made him take it as the clock ticked into injury-time.
Kelly scored Clare’s only goal, he scored their only equaliser, his winner put them ahead for the only time all day. Oh, and he lifted the cup and gave the speech.
On the basis that he probably had to go and sweep the dressing-room, we thought it as well to stop him before he got to the door. In those closing minutes, as Clare hunted down the Waterford lead, he was the coolest man in Thurles. They needed him to be.
“I suppose it’s different being a player than a supporter, I’d say it’s worse to be up in the stand looking down at it. A lot was made of us maybe losing those games last year by a point or two in the league and the championship.
Finish strong
“From the off this year we’re looking to finish strong in games and it was the same last week and the same again this week. Once we went that point or two down with three or four minutes to go – I suppose maybe last year we might have lost that game . .. But it just goes to show the character that we’re building this year. That will give us massive confidence going into the championship in June.”
Kelly bristles a touch when it’s put to him that this was altogether more pleasing fare than last week.
“A lot has been made of it. As players, a lot of people look at us as entertainers. But we don’t get up at six o’clock in the morning, go training five or six nights a week, to entertain people. We want to try and win games, win trophies. That’s what it’s all about.
“A lot was made last week that it wasn’t the most exciting game. As a player you don’t really feel it til you go home and watch it. Today, it was a lot more exciting for the neutral, for the fan up there in the stand. The fifth of June is going to be no different. It’s going to be a different game again. ..”
Davy Fitzgerald knows his side have got away with one here. “We were in trouble for a lot of that game,” he said.
“I felt we were always chasing today. we conceded a goal inside the first minute – we didn’t have a chance to get our cover back and they had it buried in the back of the net. We made a drastic mistake for the second goal and when you get hit with sucker punches like that it’s hard to regroup. But I’m extremely proud of my lads and how they recovered.”
Derek McGrath, meanwhile, arrives with a sunnier outlook than you’d imagine he might have, especially since it looked like Waterford were due a free near the end that would have won it for them. But McGrath is in a bigger-picture kind of mood.
“Look, Patrick Curran had to bury his godfather and he went out and gave a performance like that, similarly Jamie Barron will bury his grandmother in the morning . . . And I am just very proud. I am not angry, I am not annoyed, ironically, I am just very proud.
“It was tough to take as well so it is a mixture of emotions. I thought [the non-free] was a mistake. But we make many mistakes on the line ourselves and any referee is entitled to make a mistake. .”
