They may have missed out on a shot at the intermediate crown in Kilkenny this autumn but Thomastown are the kings of under 21 hurling in the county following an eventful win over Mooncoin on Sunday.
With extra time needed to separate the sides, Thomastown ran out 5-18 to 6-12 winners and after the game, Thomastown manager Ken Walsh told KCLR that while they were happy with how the game was going in general, once the weather turned late on, they knew they would have an advantage.
“We were quite happy with how we were hurling. Credit to Mooncoin, they nailed us any time we made a mistake. Some days you might get away with one or two of them but this Mooncoin team, every time they took it [their chances]”, Walsh told Brendan Hennessy after the final whistle.
“We had a game plan worked out and it wasn’t through any fault of our game plan. We hit the 11 wides in the first half but knew we were hurling well. We knew if we kept going, we’d get our chances, tighten up on the little mistakes, and cover for each other a little bit better which we did. Thankfully, we got it to extra time.”
“I had a feeling when we got it [extra time] having beaten Dunnamaggin in extra time last week that we might have had a little edge there. We were four points down against Bennettsbridge with five minutes to go and we came storming into it in the end with a good bit of injury time and we won that game by five points.
“It was the same as last week in extra time, it started to lash rain and our captain Eddie Donnelly said ‘this is our rain’. I knew the boys were in good form coming into extra time and I thought we had a little advantage coming into it and that’s how it proved.”
“The boys just really put bodies on the line. We say the forwards got the scores up but the backs did some job. They just kept getting that little flick, little block and thanks be to God we held them out and got the win. Look, the support has been fantastic. We’ve been through a lot in the last few years with the disappointments and everyone was really down after losing the intermediate again but there are a lot of happy faces there today. I’m thrilled for everyone, all our supporters, it’s fantastic to see it. Onwards and upwards.
Listen back to the game in full below or get more post-match reaction on the latest edition of the Scoreline Extra podcast.
