Team mentor Cormac Leane says All-Ireland title win ‘is everything for the school’
WHEN Tarbert Comprehensive burst out of the traps at the start of the second half, firing home an unanswered 1-8 in 13 minutes to drive into an 11-point lead, it appeared that the North Kerry school was home and dry in the All-Ireland Colleges ‘C’ SFC final in Carlow.
Unbelievably, however, they proceeded to concede four goals in the final quarter to a now utterly dominant St Malachy’s Castlewellan, and it even took a last-gasp ’45’ from team captain Shaun Wren to save the Kerry representatives’ bacon.
Regrouping solidly in extra-time, however, and inspired by John Coolahan’s second green flag, Tarbert managed to get over the line at the end of 80-plus pulsating minutes of action. Cormac Leane, a member of the management team, could barely speak at the final whistle.
“I don’t have much of a voice left to say anything at this stage. We said it was such a good game of football that we would give everybody an extra 20 minutes! Seriously, thanks be to God, we just came out the right side in the end, but it was just unbelievable stuff,” he said.
“You’re making me cringe now hearing that back [blowing an 11-point cushion]. It was something that we had probably turned around in the last few weeks. In our run through Munster, our third quarter wasn’t the best, and it’s something we kind of focused in on. It came good today.
“Maybe we put so much energy into that period, that our legs were gone a little bit then for the next fifteen minutes, but that’s the way it goes. We had that experience from two weeks ago, we just got out of jail again, we re-set and we went again in extra-time.”
Giving due credit to the Down school, Leane – who is the Milltown/Castlemaine goalkeeper – acknowledged that their ability to engineer four goals in the space of 14 minutes was simply superb in its own right. They certainly pushed Tarbert to the very pin of their collars.
“It was ‘Golden Years’ football by their boys in the last ten minutes. It was just rain it in on top of the big man inside, and they got a few breaks off of it. They punished us. We were probably a small bit slow at recovering and getting back,” he admitted.
“That’s probably because when you are so on top, you probably want to keep driving it home. The boys probably need to learn that a small bit going forward. We joked about it this morning, that if we end up in a scenario like two weeks ago, we’ll park the bus.
“Maybe we didn’t, maybe we should have been a bit more serious about that. Look, that experience two weeks ago (against Ballymahon) stood to us, and the boys knew that themselves straightaway. They were very, very focused again, very calm, and once we got to extra-time, we just went to work.”
Pin-pointing the importance of star man John Coolahan, who has been a consistent leading light in their entire journey to All-Ireland glory, Leane believes that it’s a tremendous boost to the school, and to the surrounding areas in the vicinity.
“John is flying, he’s a big, strong physical guy, and he’s very hard to contain at this level. There were so many goals during the game that I can hardly remember [his second], but it’s a great one for him to have now, and to look back on, hopefully for years to come.
“It’s everything for the school. I suppose we set out maybe this time last year, we sat down with these boys, and we told them what our plan was. Did we think we would be here today? I don’t know. It’s easy to say we did, but we just wanted to get them out playing, and see where it took us.
“It’s onwards and upwards now, hopefully. We’re very proud, it’s been very enjoyable. They’re a great bunch of lads, they’ve given us no trouble all year, and it’s great for them. Hopefully they will drive on now, and have further success.
“It’s great, and I must say that the buy-in within the community, the last week has been unbelievable fun. To see the flags up around the village in Tarbert, a few of the lads made a great effort to do that during the week, we really appreciate that support.”