'Any day you win a championship is a great day'

SFC final reaction

It’s never easy to articulate your thoughts when collared by the media men moments after a breakthrough success but Gowna joint-manager Fintan Reilly made a good fist of it on Sunday.

The Redhills clubman is in his second year with Gowna and has now added the Holy Grail of a Senior Championship to the Division 1 league title they won last season. The spectre of losing the county final to Ramor in a replay 12 months ago hung over the team and, he said, they learned from it.

“A lot of people in Gowna played their part in this victory today and that’s right from underage up. People said it was a young team – it is a young team but you can’t be young forever and these boys are seasoned now. We showed we learned from last year.

“I’m delighted for everybody in Gowna now, I’m delighted for the committee but more importantly for these players. A lot of them would have had fathers at home with medals and now they can match theirs and that bodes well for the future for Gowna.”

Gowna were three points up at the break but kicked on afterwards to win the match by seven.

“We came out after half-time and we got a couple of early scores and then they hit us (with a few scores). We knew once we got the ball in midfield we would get scores. Thankfully, we went short with a kick-out, we worked it up and we got a score.

“And then the goal at the end was the icing on the cake, it just finished it off. Credit to Killygarry, coming from where they were last year, it’s unbelievable and they were in the minor final today as well so credit goes to them, too.

“We felt at half-time we hadn’t done that well on breaking ball and we knew we had to up it in the second half. Then, in the second half, a lot of kick-outs came out to the stand side here and we won a lot of them and we won a lot of breaks.

“It’s a massive effort, I’m just delighted for everybody.”

There was a lovely cameo late on when Mark McKeever came off, to rapturous applause. Reilly described it as “a special moment”.

“I spoke about some of these young boys and their fathers having medals, Mark is just adding to his collection. And ‘Razor’ Keogh and Ronan Bannon, it’s everybody, it’s great to see it. If these boys stick at it, they could be around for a long time but every year is different and they just have to go back at it again.

“We were very disappointed here last year but we’ve come and got the win now and that’s it.”

On a personal level, this was Fintan’s third championship as a manager and he paid tribute to his wife and family and had a special word for his late father-in-law, Michael O’Reilly from Killeshandra, a great football man.

“Any day you win a championship is a great day. I can’t do this without the support you get from home. It’s a massive job and it’s no different from Dermot, he gets support at home too. We lost a very good man two and a half years ago, my father-in-law and he was with us the whole way today,” he said, as his voice cracked.

Meanwhile, Man of the Match Cian Madden also referenced losing last year’s decider.

“There was a lot of hurt last year. We learned the hard way how to win. They always say you have to lose one to win one and we experienced that but, my God, it’s sweet when you get over the line.”

Regarding his fisted point in the second half and whether he could have gone for goal, Cian said: “Conor gave it to me and I was thinking ‘if I miss this and they go down and score a goal, I’ll never forgive myself!’. I was just thinking of tapping the ball over the bar and getting a score because they had got four on the trot so it was probably an important score at that moment.”

His own role in the team is a selfless one much of the time.

“That’s what the boys ask me to do. I have kind of turned into a half-back, you have more freedom as a half-back now the way the game has gone. You’re not really being marked and you have lots of freedom to get on the ball and make things happen.

“Fitness levels are probably sky high with a lot of football being played this year. I am enjoying the role and especially when you’re winning, it’s even sweeter as well.

“I wouldn’t say there was pressure. There was obviously a bit of nerves there, we didn’t want a repeat of last year. The first 15 minutes lost us the game last year. It’s a relief to get over the line, especially when you lose one.

“We knew we were favourites coming into the game and it was about handling that and thank God we did.”

Next up for Gowna will be the Ulster Club Championship where they will hope to improve Cavan’s poor record. They face the Fermanagh champions in the opening round.

“100pc, it’s great to be even competing in Ulster, it’s obviously been 20 years since a Gowna team went into it. We’ll enjoy the next week or so but we’ll look forward to it after that.”