IN January 2022, long after the final whistle had blown in the Ulster club final, Man of the Match Eugene Branagan was interviewed on the pitch at the Athletic Grounds.
The frosty air that evening meant every breath was visible, yet he spoke with a glinting eye and an eternally smiling face. After the interview he headed for the tunnel and leapt a four foot barrier that was in his path. Winning gives great joy and great energy.
Unfortunately, on Sunday past, Eugene left the field dejected, walking slowly and solemnly behind Paul Devlin, Niall Kane came after him. Most of the others had trudged a similar path minutes earlier.
A polite shake of the hand for anyone commiserating with them but no smiles, no leaps. Such are the juxtaposed emotions that can come with sport and particularly with finals.
Across from the Kilcoo changing room to which the lads were heading, music was already pumping, joy abounding, as Errigal Ciaran began their celebrations.
This Kilcoo side have brought their fans many, many great days over the last decade plus. In Ulster they’ve been triumphant twice, once at All-Ireland level but, even with that success behind them, the pain of losing a provincial final was very evident.
Karl Lacey took a while to emerge from a crestfallen, disconsolate changing room but the Kilcoo boss still made time to speak to the press who had gathered.
Lacey said, “We’re very disappointed. You look back on our own performance, we probably didn’t do enough with the ball first half, we found it very difficult to get our hands on the ball, they kept it for large periods of time, we came in at half time, reassessed and still thought we were in a good place.
“Second half then, the sending off, it’s not finger pointing at anybody, we just didn’t do enough with the ball. It’s as simple as that.
“We didn’t do enough in attack, we weren’t composed enough in attack, we had a lot of fumbles, handling errors, forced passes, a lot of poor decisions in key areas.”
In the full story Karl Lacey looks at kick outs and retaining possession, and how they affected the outcome of the game.
