Carlow senior hurling manager Colm Bonnar says Saturday’s Christy Ring Cup Final victory over Antrim was a game they simply had to win.
Speaking to KCLR after Saturday’s victory, Colm says if they had lost Saturday’s Final, it would have had a massive effect.
“For the sake of our own mentality, we had to come out and beat Antrim”, says Bonnar.
“If we had been beat a fourth time, even if it was a challenge or whatever, it would have killed us because we knew we could match them, we knew we could hurl them but we had to actually get the score right on the board and that’s what we had done, and we are delighted now that it was actually in the Christy Ring Final.
“I felt with this Antrim team if we didn’t respond to their goals, I knew they would get three or four goals because that’s what they have always done against us that we need to keep the points going and take our own goal opportunities so I said we need to be 6, 7, 8 points going in with 10 minutes to go and that’s what we were so we are delighted.”
The reward for beating Antrim on Sunday and bringing the Christy Ring cup back to Carlow is an All-Ireland qualifer against Laois. That game is currently set for the weekend of 24/25 June with venue and times yet to be confirmed.
