‘Love it! I love the Wicklow Cup’

ASHFORD ROVERS’ full-backs had the full backing of their manager Clifton Conyard who never doubted his side, no matter how late they left it.

Makeshift left-back Finn Brooks and rightback Karl Earls proved to be the unlikely heroes but Conyard always felt it was only a matter of time before his side got what they deserved from the match.

It was the second year in a row where Brooks found the net and the versatile star confessed his undying love for the competition after collecting his Man of the Match award.

“Love it. I love the Wicklow Cup. I would do anything for Ashford and anything to win” declared the scorer of Rovers’ equaliser.

He continued: “We had the belief from the beginning. We knew we were going to win. We’ve trained hard and this is our season – this is our cup.”

Rovers left it until the 79th minute to draw level having fallen behind on the stroke of half-time and that lead to some stern words at the break for the two-time champions as Conyard admits.

“We said to the lads at half-time that we thought we should have been leading instead of going in 0-1 down.

“I told them to keep going and keep at them. It was hard to come back from it but the lads kept going and going. “We have a never-say-die attitude. “The lads are stubborn. They got onto themselves at half-time and they got each other going again.”

Conyard was full of praise for Brooks but was coy on his own plans for the future having already put his retirement plans on ice at the beginning of this season.

“He’s unreal. Finn got asked to go into left-back and not a word out of him. When everyone else was standing still then after the penno, Finn Brooks was straight in to put it in the back of the net.

“We’ll have to wait and see. It’s hard to get away from the Wicklow Cup and especially if we keep winning it – the feeling is brilliant,” he added.