Football is a family business for Smith

SFC final build-up

For Crosserlough captain Pierce Smith, football and family are very much intertwined.

The schoolteacher is joined on the Crosserlough team by his brother Stephen and first cousins James and Peter Smith and Emmett Boylan. Uncle Philip, the former Cavan midfielder, is selector. We may be forgetting some - and you can dig deeper if you want…

“There are a lot of family members, look, if we went into second cousins we could say we are all related!” joked Smith, who turns 24 next Sunday.

“Look, it will be a big day but it’s brilliant. The camogie has been so successful in the club the last few years, they’ve won the last four county championships. The ladies are only three years up in senior and they’ve competed in three county finals, unfortunately they lost to Lacken two weeks ago.

“So we’re heading in the right direction as a club as a whole. The whole club has a family feel to it, we support the women as much as they support us. It’s brilliant to see and there’s a real good atmosphere around the club with the new facilities and everything.

“Look, we are in a good position but we have another 60 or 70 minutes to get through next week.

“Hopefully we can put in another good performance. If we put in a good performance next week, we'll be in with a good chance but if we don't... this time next week we'll be drowning our sorrows but we'll see what happens."

Smith has spent much of this season on the sidelines due to injury but the former MacRory Cup-winning joint-captain has come off the bench to make an impact in a handful of games. On Sunday, he ended up playing longer than expected due to extra time so this week is all about recovery.

"I picked up a groin injury in June 2019 with Cavan, and it just hasn't fully healed up yet now. I'm slowly getting back to more game time but it's just something that's been prolonged and I haven't been able to fully get it right - it gets better and then it gets worse but if I'm able to make any sort of impact, I'm happy enough to come off the bench and help the team in any way.

“I got a good run-out there with the extra time but we'll see how the body is tomorrow. In the last few weeks, I've been trying to work it up, with 10 minutes, 15 minutes but the aim was 30 minutes today, and I nearly got a full game out of it.

“It's a wee bit stiff now but that was to be expected, that was one hell of a battle. I'll do the recovery now and tomorrow and hopefully get the body right for next weekend."

Sitting on the sidelines is a difficult place to be for any athlete but Smith has made the best of it.

"I'm nearly more nervous watching than playing. You just try to encourage the lads, as best you can, and when you come on the field, you want to add something. There's no point coming on the field and not adding anything.

“I hope I added something to the game today. My fitness might not be 100pc but if I can add something at all… same as the rest of the lads - Enda Gaffney, Peter Smith, Emmett Boylan - they all made big impacts and another few lads. There has to be that hunger and desire to get in to the thick of it because if you don't, you're going to be found wanting."

Sunday’s semi-final was no place for the faint-hearted. The hits came hard, and often, with neither side giving an inch.

"Neither team wanted to lose, that's why Castlerahan, for the last two years, they're champions in league and championship - they have a 'never say die' attitude. We got the penalty in extra-time and that gave us that gap but they're a serious, serious outfit.

“Every ball, you have to fight for. Even if you think you've won the ball, they're one of the best tackling teams we've come up against. We played them in the league, in the first game this year, and the intensity they brought to their tackling caught a lot of us by surprise, so we knew that we either needed to aim towards that or better to make sure that we could match them.

“Thankfully, today, and it took eighty minutes to get the better of them, but thankfully we just did."

Pierce agreed that in earlier rounds, Crosserlough had had a Jekyll and Hyde quality about their play. They were magnificent in patches but seemed prone to lapses in concentration. That improved on Sunday when it was needed.

"Yeah, we like to think that we bring a high-intensity game and, now, it is hard to keep that up over long periods but it's important that we keep that up over the 60 or 70 minutes instead of coming in and out of games, but it can all depend on how teams set up in games.

“You have to be able to react and, thankfully, today we were able to react just that bit better and, thankfully, we got the win."

Having made a final in 2018 and a semi-final last year, returning to the big day was a must this year to continue the progression.

"We're still a young team, especially with two of our older players, our captains, Dara McVeety and Paul McEvoy being away and Eoin Cusack, too, so I think our oldest player was 26 out there.

“The lads have put in a serious stint in training. We played Ramor in the league and got a three-point hammering, to be honest, and we had to have a hard look at ourselves and we upped the ante - we slowly, slowly started to get better and better but we still have a big battle coming next week.

“It's going to be one hell of a battle and we need to ensure we bring the same intensity, if not more. But we have to make sure the bodies are right first."