Best day bar none as Bouncers gain entry to winners’ club

EVERYWHERE else in Ireland, yesterday was a grey, damp day but not in the vast Garryspillane hinterland, in the villages of Knocklong and Galbally, where many of the Limerick SHC- winning team were born and raised.

Garryspillane was a parish en fete.

Not a drink fest, mind you; Sunday evening stretched to Monday’s dawn, and the two pubs in the village, Molly Dawson’s and O’Meara’s, did the kind of business one would expect on such a night, and again all day yesterday.

But this was a victory that was being savoured, not drowned in an alcoholic haze, a breakthrough slowly digested.

Central to those celebrations, as he had been onfield in Sunday’s victory, was 20-year veteran Frankie Carroll.

After the final whistle, having scored six critical points, won a penalty, set up a goal, big Frankie circled the middle of the pitch, crushing his team-mates, his friends, in one hug after another.

Yesterday, Frankie was back to earth, arrived at Molly Dawson’s with his wife and four-year-old daughter.

“I hardly had a drink last night,” he explained.

“There was such a crowd in the village you couldn’t even get into the pub, never mind get a drink. People just stood around outside, talking.

“I remember we came back this time last year after losing the final, there was plenty of room at the bar to drown your sorrows. I’ll take last night any time. We went for a meal after the match, came home on the bus, the whole team together, we stopped a couple of hundred yards from the crossroads, and walked in with the cup. Thousands were there. I never saw such a crowd. It was unbelievable.”

With Frankie on that symbolic walk was corner-forward Donie Ryan, another hero of Sunday’s win.

“The bus stopped outside our house (Donie had two brothers on the starting fifteen, captain David and TJ).

“That’s a walk I’ve done so many thousand times, but this one, I’ll never forget.”

At half-time on Sunday they trailed Kilmallock by three points, but a statement by coach Tony Considine got them back on track.

“He said, ‘Ye have 30 minutes to rectify it, or the rest of your lives to regret it!’,” recalls Donie.

“How could that not lift you?”

That’s not the only revealing story told of Considine’s hold over this team. Goal-scorer Pat Tobin, elevated to the Limerick panel in yesterday’s match report in a case of mistaken identity with his namesake from Murroe-Boher, tells the tale of the Friday before the final.

Training, followed by a team meeting, he explained to his long-suffering wife that he might be late.

“He’s not God, you know!” she complained. “He’s not,” agreed Pat. “He’s the devil!”

Everyone saw the heroics on the field, Frankie’s points, Donie’s 1-3, Pat’s goal; Darren Hayes did his bit in goal, the Galbally full-back line of Kiely/Sheehan/Noonan put up the shutters inside, while Colm Hickey, David Ryan, Tommy O’Donnell and sub Seamus Burke manned the barricades outside.

The teenager Jim Bob Ryan and Miceal O’Donnell dominated midfield, TJ and Maurice O’Brien won ball in the half-forward line and Eoin Burke notched the point that put them in the lead. There were heroes off the field, two in particular, without whom the final would not have been won.

Frankie says: “Ever since we were beaten in our first senior final in ’97, the effort that’s gone in is unbelievable, by Jim Dooley especially.

“Jim owns the garage and he’s been pumping in cash to the club, but running it as a business at the same time.

“Crona Ryan is the club secretary, daughter of The Jap, who was known throughout the country. He was killed a few years ago in a car crash, and Crona continued the family tradition. She’s a fantastic character and she has also had a huge input.”

Last Sunday in the Gaelic Grounds, lives were defined. Heroes, all of them; parish heroes, village heroes.

The beating heart of the GAA.