‘Massive’ win for the club Huge underage work praised

BALTINGLASS captain Jason Kennedy said in his speech that he had heard the Baltinglass lady footballers singing, “There’s only one Paul Garrigan” during the manager’s spell with the Baltinglass women and that he always thought it was a bit much but that he might be even belting it out himself when they got back to Baltinglass on Sunday night.

We can’t confirm if Kennedy did let rip with his own version of said song but we think the Baltinglass ladies were on to something.

Garrigan, as always, was open and more than willing to chat after the final whistle and he said his warriors saved their best for the final.

“Hard to think after that. I think from the word go it was end to end stuff. Real exciting. In fairness, Pat’s threw everything at us and in fairness to our lads they just took it all in, they saved the best performance for the final,” he said.

Plenty of key men stood up for Baltinglass on the day, none more so than Garrigan’s captain Jason Kennedy.

“Last week we could nearly tell from his voice that he was up for this and that this was our year.

“I think the match against Bray really brought us on.

“If you looked in from the outside it was more of a team performance than an individual one. They’re such an honest group out there, even the lads came in. My most difficult job this year was trying to pick the team, trying to get the 15 lads on the sheet was difficult. Any of those other lads could have come in there.

Another key man for Baltinglass was that loyal and talented servant Joey Kelly.

Paul Garrigan says he’s delighted for Joey Kelly who will now get to play in Leinster after all his years of service.

“I played a county final with Joey Kelly here in 2002 and Joey is still here. I was looking around the dressing room before the game and we were supposed to be here at quarter to two and Joey walsk in at 2pm and he gets man of the match here today.

“The last time Baltinglass won this we didn’t get into Leinster because the championship was put back so I gave the lads an aim, get Joey Kelly playing in Leinster and job done,” he said.

Championship wins are big deals for clubs. Baltinglass are no different. Paul Garrigan says this win is massive.

“It’s massive. There’s huge work being done at our club from juvenile up.

“This will do massive things for Baltinglass. Our under-16s won yesterday, our Minors were beaten in the semi-final, our under-14s are in the semi-final so it will give them a massive lift.

“As I said to the lads before the match, when you walk in the gates of Baltinglass GAA Club this is your dream, to get to Aughrim on county final day and to hopefully get the Miley but even to be here and to be involved is great”.