‘It’s unbelievable to end the long journey in Croke Park’

ST COLMCILLE’S boss Colm Nally, in his very last match in charge, was quick to heap praise on his players shortly after their agonising single-point defeat to Westport.

‘Today is not about analysing that performance,’ Nally said. ‘The lads have been brilliant all year and if anyone had said at the start of the year that our journey would end in Croke Park - win, lose or draw, we’d have snatched the hands off them.

‘Ultimately the aim was to win the Meath championship. To win Leinster was great, but to get here today was an unbelievable experience.’

His charges were well off the pace for long spells in the opening half and that ultimately cost them, but Nally wasn’t sure if the occasion got to the players early on.

‘We went the guts of 28 minutes without scoring, we went 0-1 to 0-8 behind and we were thinking that this is not us. Okay, we might concede a lot, but we also score a lot. We weren’t scoring in that spell.

‘We could have been 0-3 to 0-0 up - we missed two frees - and that all breathes oxygen into the other team and gave them more belief. You could see then near the end we had the oxygen, while they were hanging on nervous.

‘I believe there was around 9,000 here today, but you don’t know how lads will perform or react to that.

‘We thought we had everything covered. We were up here last week and had a look around the building, we trained in Abbotstown, we thought we had everything covered, but the one thing we couldn’t cover was the noise levels and the atmosphere. Did some lads freeze? I don’t know.

‘There is a good mix of youth and experience, but sometimes it’s the youth that flourishes and the experience that freezes.’

The Cille’s have fought back from deficits in the past and won out in close finishes, but they were fighting to make up the deficit for most of the way in this one.

‘Today we didn’t get that lead, so we were chasing it all day long. Westport were a wellcoached side. You could see their kickout strategy. We knew they were going to find their number 10. We knew their two inside forwards were very strong. Oisin McLoughlin got a ball in front of the Hogan Stand with two of our players on him, but he turned them and buried it in the back of the net.

‘Our lads knew he was strong, but coming up against it on the day is very different to watching it on video. He was like a bull and he caused serious trouble. Every team has weaknesses and we tried to cover our weaknesses and identify theirs, but they also had their homework done on us.

‘Westport missed chances, but that is the Westport we saw in videos. We knew if we stayed on our feet and put it up to them they snap and pot-shot. We weren’t expecting the Westport that kicked eight on the bounce.

“We had drilled our lads to stay on their feet and push them to the edges to take pot shots and you could see they had to kick some very good scores.’

Westport inside forwards Colm Moran and Oisin McLoughlin scored 2-4 between them and caused a lot of problems. Footballer of the Year Lee Keegan also got through a lot of work.

‘Those lads are off Mayo Minor and U-21 teams, so they are tasty players,’ Nally added. ‘Lee Keegan directed everything for them. One minute he was on Graham (Reilly) the next minute he was marking Ben. He seemed to have a defensive role with the freedom to go from danger man to danger man. When you have a player like him you have a great chance.

‘However, I thought Graham was excellent there today as well.’

Nally has no fears for the Cille’s at senior level.

‘I’m handing over to a good man in Des Lane. The goal for this club was to be senior, so this has been fabulous and a real stepping stone. Hopefully they will learn from this. I’ve no doubt they can consolidate that position this year, and when things settle down, if they are not too fatigued, they have the chance to impress.’