History makers: Kilmoyley get their first Munster victory

Kilmoyley put decades of heartache in the shade with a performance of poise and purpose in the Gaelic Grounds, writes Damian Stack

IT really didn’t take long to gauge just how much it meant. To be fair the performance probably told us all we needed to know. Their ravenous hunger betrayed the hurt they were undoubtedly feeling.

For a club as proud as this it was downright intolerable. Twenty four county titles – level with Ballyduff yet again after this year’s county final – and still not quite on top of the pile, still with something to prove.

They had to prove it to themselves as much as they had to prove it to everybody else. Having knocked on that door since 1971 it was about time they pushed on through to the other side and, boy, did they do so in style in the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday afternoon.

When Colm Lyons brought matters to a close Kilmoyley were eleven point victors over a well-fancied Monaleen outfit. Cue an outpouring of emotion on the pitch and in the stands.

This was special. This was it. This is what they’d been waiting for all those years. This is what Ballyduff and Lixnaw had experienced and they hadn’t. The bluebloods of Pairc Naomh Eric in Lerrig now stand tall with the best of them.

The celebrations on the pitch didn’t last as long as most would have liked. Kilmoyley didn’t quite have the luxury of being allowed to take their time and soak it all in, there was the small matter of the Munster senior semi-final between Glen Rovers and Patrickswell.

So down the tunnel they came and back down into the sanctuary of the dressing room beneath the stand. To say the atmosphere in the dressing room sounded electric from the corridor outside would be to do it a disservice.

These guys were revelling in it as well they might.

When Daniel Collins, the hero of the hour, was done talking with the press men and the door swung open to welcome him back inside his comrades greeted him riotously.

Collins is the rarest of things – a prophet recognised in his own time by his own people. His performance was every bit as good as the headline figures suggest, the greeting he received more than fitting.

The 2016 Kerry captain – and, who knows, he might yet be given the nod again for 2017 – scored 1-7, 1-3 of that from play, won three puck-outs, but his performance was about so much more than that.

He knitted that team together. He linked the play and pulled the strings. Consider for a moment a couple of Kilmoyley points scored within a minute of each other midway through the first half.

For the first James Godley assisted Collins, safe in the knowledge that Collins would do the right thing with it and, then,