IAN O'RIORDANhears the contrasting emotions from the opposing camps after the victory by St Gall's
TEARS OF joy. Tears of rage.
There was no telling the difference in the aftermath of this one. When two teams come to Croke Park, playing for a first title for either club or county, in front of a crowd of 34,357, things are bound to get emotional come the end. For St Gall’s of Antrim it
was an outpouring of pride; for Kilmurry-Ibrickane it was deep, hurtful disappointment. Tears like that are hard to distinguish.
If there was one thing which ultimately may have swung it in favour of St Gall’s it was the fact they’d endured the tears of rage four years ago, and for corner back and captain Colin Brady, that was the starting point for turning it into joy.
“We’ve always known ourselves we’ve been good enough,” said Brady, “but maybe the last time we were here, four years ago, we let ourselves down. To have the chance to rectify that was special.
“A lot of teams don’t get that opportunity. I remember four years thinking we’d never get back. But we kept battling away. Eventually we knew if we put our heads to it then anything was possible.
“We just kept drilling it into us, what we wanted to achieve. That never stopped the whole way through the year. Club football doesn’t get any better than this.”
Brady paid tribute to Kilmurry-Ibrickane, and wasn’t just offering the standard consolation when saying their day can come, if they stick with it.
“We got comfortable early on and were able to impose our game plan. Our forwards were brilliant, tackled and closed down. But we respected Kilmurry. I’ve always said that any team that comes out of their province is good enough to win an All-Ireland.”
Enda Coughlan, the Kilmurry- Ibrickane centre back and captain, wasn’t so sure. His tears of rage were at least based on the fear the chance won’t come again, not for such a small club in rural west of Ireland: “It’s so disappointing to get beaten. It’s difficult to even talk about. In the first half things didn’t go right for us, and we were facing an uphill battle after that.
“I don’t think it was the occasion that got to us. They just played pretty good football in the first half. They ran at us, caused us all sorts of trouble, and kicked some great scores. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t deal with it in the first half.
“There are a lot of young players here. But you never know what way things are going to go. After last year’s Munster final we didn’t know how many would be around and, thankfully, most of them were. But we’re a small club in west Clare. There isn’t much work back there, so we could lose a few players after this.
“This was a great chance. We were here to win, and to be honest, it’s not worth being here if we didn’t win. We came up to win. As far as I’m concerned it wasn’t just a day out. Every player was calm, but we just didn’t seem to have an answer in the first half, and paid a price. No other team in the year caused us that much problems. We kind of got to grips with it, but we not fully. We just ran out of time in the end.”
In the end, though, there was no denying the extra class of St Gall’s, which this year has been put down to the addition of Lenny Harbinson as manager.
He put things in full context by pointing out eight of their players had lined out in the intermediate club hurling final three weeks ago, and lost.
“This is a tremendous achievement for the team, first and foremost,” said Harbinson, “and for the St Gall’s community in Belfast, and for football in Antrim. We’re delighted to have won, and with a wee bit of style as well. In fairness this team has plenty of experience, and lots of good footballers, and a tremendous work ethic.
“We steadied the ship after conceding the early goal. As long as we took our high-tempo game to them we knew we’d get back into it. We do have a great tradition playing seven-a-side football as well, and there’s no denying that stood to us throughout the campaign.
As a parting shot, Gerard McCarthy, a selector with Kilmurry-Ibrickane, hoped the Clare side would be back sometime soon: “No regrets. We were beaten by a better team on the day, who played a fantastic standard of football. When they had space they exploited it. We’ve learned a lot from it, and hopefully we can learn from it and be back again.”
2009-10 All-Ireland Club SFC Leading Scorers
GamesScore
Conor McGourty (St Gall’s)6 2-28 (34)
Kieran Comer (Corofin)33-16 (25)
Paul Cahillane (Portlaoise)54-11 (23)
Barry Fitzgerald (Portlaoise)52-15 (21)
