‘It’s a great day for the club’

THERE’S something about the place that brings the best out of Kerry footballers. History and tradition and myth and everything else combining to inspire the best from those who step foot upon the sacred sod of Croke Park.

It’s always the aim of course to perform at your best in a final, it’s just a hell of a lot easier said than done. One guy who really stepped up to the mark, yet again, in this All Ireland club final was Shane McSweeney.

The midfielder / half-forward gave one of his best ever performances for his club and given how long McSweeney has been playing – and starring – for Kilcummin that’s saying something.

In a lot of ways he was the hinge upon which so much of what Kilcummin did well on Saturday evening turned. He won six kickouts. He assisted man of the match Kevin McCarthy for his first goal. He worked his socks off.

Much like Brendan Kealy – on any other day he’d probably have nabbed the man of the match award and that speaks to just how solid a performance this was from Kilcummin. No stone left unturned, no player not giving his all.

“It’s absolutely unreal,” he says just outside Kilcummin’s Hogan Stand dressing room.

“I’ve been soldiering since I was seventeen or eighteen in the Kilcummin senior team and it’s days like this that you get reward. It’s an unbelievable feeling to go out there in Croke Park and get the run out there and to win which was the most important thing there today. It’s an unbelievable feeling.

“The atmosphere and everything you just get on with things. You get carried away in the whole thing and just get on with the game, but it’s some buzz now to be honest.”

As for his own performance you wonder whether he was pleased with it?

“I was happy,” he admits. “A day like today you need to perform and I was happy enough with my own performance. It’s days like this where you need every fella on the team to perform and every fella did now today.

“It’s great for the club. We had a lot of disappointments over the years and we got relegated back down to intermediate we came again in the space of a year to win the intermediate and back up to senior and then to win Munster and then today to win the All Ireland it’s unreal.

“Absolutely mighty, we’ll enjoy the next few days so we will.”

The entire parish of Kilcummin will bask in the happy afterglow of last Saturday for some time you suspect.

“The support we had today, the amount of people who came up from Kilcummin the supporters and they’ve been very good all year,” McSweeney continues.

“There’s been a lot of bad days and they still support us, but today the amount of people who came up and they’re very good. It’s a great day for the club and for the parish. It brings communities together.

“When we left there Friday morning we passed Kilcummin National School where I went to school and to see all the young children out cheering us on, it’s great to win there today and all them young children looking on. It’s great for the club and great for the parish.

“Any day you win an All Ireland medal with your club it’s going to be one of the best days ever. We’d have a lot of fellas on the team who’d have won All Ireland medals with the county and stuff, but to win it with your club is just very, very special.”