Darragh’s delight

bunch of guys, we lost about six of seven of the lads who were older. At the start of the season a few lads were thinking, “Oh, we won it last year, we’ll win it again”. But that was quickly put out of their heads. We knew there were teams in this that we hadn’t played before, the team we played in the final for example, Pearse Gaels. We knew the players and we knew the clubs but we didn’t know what to expect, we were going into the unknown. Playing Blessington the year before made it easier for us because we were able to channel our nerves and stuff but then again not knowing your opposition is a bit of a disadvantage but in saying that the lads stepped up big time on the day,” he said.

One of the interesting aspects of the final was that it wasn’t the household names who starred, it was the younger players who stepped up to the plate.

“I kind of found in the final I was taking the frees and you had other lads stepping up to the plate, the Tiernan McBrides and the Peter Hempenstalls, those sort of guys, Ciaran O’Shea, who is a natural corner or wing back, played corner-forward and scored two or three goals.

“So they stepped up big time and we hadn’t performed all year so to finish the way we did was fantastic,” he said.

A decent run in Leinster promised much more success but when the Meath champions, led by Graham Reilly came calling, that was to be the end of the AGB odyssey.

“They’ve got some Meath county footballers on their team so we knew that it was going to be tough. We played in our own backyard and we were really up for the game so it was fairly heart-breaking because we thought we had it in us. And they obviously went on and won it (the Leinster club title),” he said.

Survival at Senior and promotion in the league is Darragh’s and AGB’s desire for 2017.

“We’re up into the Senior championship and any team that comes up new, they’re first job is to stay there and we’re going to have to do a lot of work to do a lot of work just to stay up.

“We’re in Division 2 league as well and one of our main objectives is to get promoted there as well,” he said.

With young men like Darragh Fitzgerald lighting up the GAA fields of Wicklow this summer nobody would be surprised to see the Arklow men cause some of the top teams more than a few headaches in the championship.