Gets its due reward
to work with. Their feet are on the ground, they listen, I don’t think we have a hard job from that point of view.
“I know there was expectation on us, but we were only trying to play weekend football. That was the aim, to get back to playing football on a Saturday, and if you were playing on a Saturday, you know that you’re in the mix then.
“We could draw up new goals after that, and that’s the way we approached it. We knew we had a decent team but, if you get any bit ahead of yourself, you’re going to fall flat on your face. Just kind of distracting them, and giving them little targets along the way, that’s what we did all along.”
With three successive victories in the Corn Ui Mhuiri group stages, Mercy Mounthawk went on to defeat St Francis Rochestown, St Brendan’s Killarney and Tralee CBS to lift the Munster title. An All-Ireland semi-final victory over Naas CBS has now set up Saturday’s decider against Omagh CBS.
“We don’t want to put everyone behind the ball and, to be fair to Omagh, they do get lads back, but they play a lovely brand of football when they have the ball. They scored 6-16 in the final last year, they played like the Harlem Globetrotters, and they got 4-14 in the semi-final.
“I was at their game the last day [against St Gerald’s Castlebar], and they won in third gear really, without probably one or two of their better players playing well. They play a modern type of football where you have to be hard to break down, but then, when they do get the ball, they become alive.
“Obviously everyone wants to play well in Croke Park, but we’re going to explain to them that not everybody is going to play well. You just have to try your hardest and do your best. That’s all you can do on the day. If it works out for you, it works out for you. If it doesn’t, you didn’t let anyone down.
“These boys have given their families, and given the school, huge enjoyment throughout the year. If they lose, their families are going to be as proud of them as if they won. We are the same. We’re going to go up, play with freedom, and enjoy it.
“We probably might have to be a little wary of how strong they are up front. We will have to cut our cloth a small bit there. A team that kicked 6-16 in the final the previous year, you’d be a blind man not to notice that. We’re going up there to, hopefully, enjoy it, and free ourselves up to play.”
This has been a journey that O’Shea, Luke Mulligan, Kieran Costello, and the entire Mercy Mounthawk squad will never forget. Whether the Hogan Cup is lifted at Croke Park at the weekend remains to be seen, but the camaraderie that exists will never fade away.
“We’ve a bond now, as a group, the management and the players. We speak about that an awful lot, and obviously the longer that you stay in the competition, the more you get out of that. Going to Croke Park is amazing, but getting three more weeks out of it is just as good,” stressed O’Shea.
“The boys would love this to go all the way along to their Leaving Cert, and obviously that’s not going to happen. We’ve done all we can do, we’ve got the most out of it, and if you can eke the most out of anything, you have to be content with that.
“They’re a special group, and they’re the type of lads that, in ten years’ time, when they’re coming down the street, you will cross the road to meet them. The dream for me, personally, is that some of these guys might go on to teach in a few years’ time, and they come back in here, and we start growing our own tradition as a football school.
“For these young lads, I think this is probably the equivalent of winning an All-Ireland club. It’s unbelievably hard to win, it’s special, you might only ever get one opportunity. It’s the biggest day of their lives, and if you can help them to get across the line, it’s unbelievably satisfying.”