Sheehan wins record equalling eleventh title
HAVING first got involved with the club at senior level when he was 15 years old, Bryan Sheehan has seen a fair amount of the ups and downs for his club as he now joins club-mate Austin Constable in winning an 11th South Kerry SFC medal as he reflected on how it has gone for the club since he first got a taste of senior level nearly two decades ago.
“I got involved firstly with a team that was very unlucky not to reach senior level in Kerry and did the first ‘three-in-a-row’ that I was involved in. A new team has emerged in the last decade with a core group of about seven or eight Minors who have thankfully stuck with it and brought us to the stage where we did another ‘three-in-a-row’ then a third and finally leading now up to this ‘five-in-a-row”,” Sheehan said.
Dwelling on their achievements is something for later in life however as Sheehan felt last Saturday boiled down to one question for the club. “The main thing for us in advance was did we still have the hunger to win. We proved it out there today that we still do and that’s a massive credit to the players. The South Kerry Championship is still something special down here and winning it is still important to this group,” Sheehan said.
He cited the earlier playing of the competition this year as a big factor in the impressive nature of St Marys performance last Saturday as he felt that tactically the club got it pretty much spot on. “The big thing we had to do was to push up on Dromid’s kick-outs because they are a team that when they get possession of the ball hardly ever give it away with the way they are coached. The ball was sticking inside in our forward line too today and our response to their first goal was crucial in scoring another ourselves and taking that momentum away from them,” Sheehan felt.
The five-time All-Ireland winner with Kerry admitted to enjoying his Football more now he has stepped away from the inter-county scene and gave his thumbs up in general to the new playing calendar.
“I thought the Club Championships ran very well in playing it off to a finish like it was in April. We had only 16 players for two of the games, but the main thing was it were proper games for club players. Having a County League game every two weeks worked well too I thought.”
“The only thing I thought was wrong was the delay between when South Kerry were knocked out of the County Championship at the end of September and the wait to start this. It is what it is, but I think this could have been finished off a bit sooner myself.”