Last weekend Graigue Ballycallan and Shamrocks played out a magnificent Championship game that seen James O’Connors men progress to the next stage.
The game ended 2-23 to 2-20 with a late enough flurry of goals from Joe Cuddihy and Colin Fennelly seen the reigning and defending county champions through, after what was a tremendous fight from Graigue. Shamrocks manager O’Connor was quick to praise his opponents after the game, speaking to Scoreline he said;
“Ballycallan threw everything at us! In fairness to Shamrocks we turned it on for five minutes in the end, we banged in two goals and a couple of points and opened up a little gap. For 45 minutes of that game, it was hammer and tongs. We met as a team and I said this was going to be a dogfight, cause I knew these lads would throw the kitchen sink at us. I said to the lads I don’t care if its a one point win, its just to get that win is the big thing.”
The Shamrocks came away with the lions share of possession but uncharacteristically ended the game with 17 wide’s total, a fact that O’Connor did not seem to worry about too much ;
“We just weren’t as sharp in front of goal as we usually are. Two weeks everything was going over the bar for us, so it was just one of those days, we just had to work a little bit harder”
“There was some good performances overall throughout the field but it is just being a little more clinical in front of goal. The Shamrocks are known from getting those goals from deep, running off the shoulder. “
It was noted after the game, that Shamrocks seem to have the drive and desire to immediately score one back on their opponents after conceding and the Lismore native gave an insight into the reasoning behind that ;
“If a team does get on top of us, they get a goal or point, we attack them straight away after. Just to get a score back quickly, and we have the forwards to do that.”
Listen back to the full interview, along with James Ryalls post match thoughts below :
Up next for Shamrocks is Bennettsbridge, who were victorious over Clara in the League final.
