Carlow pulled off a massive victory against Wicklow in Round One of the Tailteann Cup in Aughrim on Sunday last
Carlow has played Wicklow on two previous occasions this year with The Garden County coming away with victory on both occasions, one in the National Football League and the other in the Leinster Football Championship. The Barrowsiders traveled to Aughrim to take on the home side for the third time this year hoping to get a good start to the Tailteann Cup round-robin. Having been drawn with Limerick and Longford also it was important that the team got a result to keep their season alive.
Both sides were guilty of some very poor shooting in the early stages with three wides apiece after 15 minutes and at half-time, the teams were level at 0-6 each.
Oisín McConville’s side looked like they had wrapped up the victory when Eoin Darcy finished to the net for Wicklow in the 59th minute to leave the Barrowsiders five points adrift. Carlow footballers have shown character in the past and they showed how much they actually have when from the 62nd minute of the game they fired over six points in succession to break Wicklow’s hearts.
Speaking to KCLR after the game, Carew was delighted and he praised his side for the way they’ve come together in the last number of weeks, especially after a two-day training camp.
“I think seventeen scores was the aspect I was most pleased with ’cause we haven’t got near that in the two/three years I’ve been here. We are creating all these opportunities and we would have felt that it could have come back to haunt us, we had four goal opportunities and we didn’t take one, Jordan had one off the line, and he had another one palmed into the net he just his positional sense wrong”
“I think we as a group when we left Aughrim five weeks ago there was a lot of soul-searching from us as a group full stop, we aired a few things to each other in terms of where we’re going and why we’re here and we wanted to put that right and I think to turn an eight-point deficit five weeks ago to get the victory here was a big plus, the boys have worked so hard in those five weeks”
“The one thing we said here at half time, it was a draw match and the biggest thing for us was if they got their ten minutes and went four or five up that we would hang in and we would get our time and in fairness they hung in there. I think it was the 62nd minute when we got our time and I think we got six points unanswered, it was great character for our lads, Mikey Bambrick got the ball up the stand sideline, took on two lads, and beat them, Crowley was coming out and generally you want to give it to your go-to man but in fairness Jonah Dunne kept his run going and Mikey gave the best pass which was into Jonah and he showed unreliable composure for his first Tailteamm Cup game to fist the ball over the bar”
“We went away for a training camp for two days and it was really down to the local business’ in Carlow that got us over the line for that, I personally went to them and asked if they’d donate a few bob towards the camp and they all done it, I think there is twelve or thirteen of them when you have to go and feed forty lads and hotels rooms it adds to be a big expense. We know where the County Board is at, there are not many teams in the Country that are trying to run the hurling and the football as an equal, if you go to Waterford it’s not the same, Sligo, Im only judging on teams where I was. When the thing is split 50/50 it’s diluted for both teams”
“We needed that two day-camp to get lads back in the fold and go get them thinking what it’s all about and why we’re here, we just felt coming away from the last Leinster championship game five weeks ago, we just felt we didn’t do ourselves justice, it’s not that we gave give up, we didn’t hang in when we should have hung in and it didn’t look good”
“Limerick is up next, I went to the Limerick/Longford game last night and they look a really seasoned team they look a composed team and it’s going to take another step up for us to beat them but I think its in us, home advantage will be a big plus, they’re a good outfit they’ve very experienced players, they have no 22 or 23-year-old playing they’re all seasoned players”
“I think our energy should be good against them and it will be an advantage, I think this win will be a big advantage to us too, Longford will be disappointed Limerick got two goals against the run of play. It was important I got down to that game last night, I wouldn’t have seen Limerick in the flesh, you can see all the videos that you want but you need to be there to feel the temperature of it regardless of the result today”
