"We were underdogs all season," says McDonald
Billy Molloy from the Fighting Cocks keeps his eye on the ball as he goes on a solo in the first half. Photo: Pat Ahern
It has been a season to remember for The Fighting Cocks.
Unheralded and unsung they won out in Carlow. Possibly against the odds but no-one could doubt that through hard work and playing to their potential, they were deserving of everything they achieved.
“We would not have expected to be here at the start of the year. We would have taken the (junior) championship,” said Jack McDonald.
“We were even going in as underdogs for that. That was the goal all along but everything after that kept rolling and rolling. We believed we could all the way but we probably left ourselves too much to do today.”
The Cocks centre-forward was bang on the money. Yes, no matter what the strength of the wind is, an eleven point deficit is always hard to overhaul.
“We seemed to be getting our purple patch but they took the sting out of it. They moved the ball well, handled the wind better than we did and that was the difference. They got two or three scores in the second half. We only got the one in the first half. I couldn’t be prouder of the boys. You couldn’t have dreamed of this.”
Goalkeeper, Darragh Byrne, didn’t have a lot to do over the course of the 60 minutes. He had no chance with the Grangenolvin goal and after that he was solid in the last line of defence. He agreed that the Kildare side were just that bit smarter over the course of the 60 minutes.
“With the wind, it was always going to be two halves in it. We might have climbed that mountain but, in the end, it was just too much. We tried to keep calm and try to do the right thing. In the end we only came up just short.”
