Cummins driven by bitter taste of defeat
Cummins admitted he would have been tempted to call it a day if they had been successful in Croke Park but revealed that there is: “an element of responsibility to stay with the group”.
He said: “I will have a look at it in the next couple of months to see where I am at. A lot of it is my decision but a lot of it is Liam Sheedy’s as well. The effort and the commitment that has to be put in is just massive. Since I started back in 1993, the whole thing has just been transformed. You are like a professional player. You are training four or five nights a week, you don’t get to see your family and there are massive sacrifices to be made.’’
Cummins feels he has an obligation as one of the senior players to stay on and help the team develop.
“I suppose we do need a few experienced heads around the place.
“There is an element of responsibility to stay with the group. But, to stay around you have to give 100% – that’s the thing; 99% won’t do with this group we have.
“If I am going back in again, I am going back in again giving it everything I have. But you can’t just make that decision in two minutes. You have to be sure that you are able to do it. There is no good being halfway through the season and thinking, ‘oh my God, my family at home and the young fellow is growing up and I don’t see him...’ But my support system at home is second to none. Only for Pamela (his wife) I would not be able to do it.
“While we are all disappointed, there is a huge amount of hope coming out of it as well. If we sit down in December, we will be able to say that there are huge building blocks there from last year and that’s what we wanted to do. Unfortunately Kilkenny got the two goals and they used their experience. That’s why they are probably one of the best teams ever. They took their chances when they got them and they put us away when we were on the rack.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day. They have four in a row and they are so used to being in that situation, whereas we are trying to develop.
“You see the team that we have and you see them without helmets and you realise that they are just young fellows. They have massive ability but you can’t get experience unless you play in these sorts of games.’’
He accepted that he had little chance of stopping Shefflin’s penalty which was travelling ‘like a bullet.’
“He hit it hard and it came off either me or Paul (Curran) I am not sure. Some days they hit the hurley and go over the bar. It was just moving so fast.
“I thought it was gone over the bar for a second and then Paudie (Padraig Maher) gave me a bit of a glance. I knew at that stage that it was not gone over the bar.
“Normally in a match, you would hear one crowd roar and the other crowd be quiet but that game was played in such a frenzy.”
Not surprisingly, he also acknowledged the huge role played by his opposite number, saying that PJ Ryan had been ‘superb.’ “He is a fantastic goalkeeper. It’s just that he has played behind such a great defence that it was a positive for us that we got to test him. The negative thing for us was that he was up to the task.
“More power to him. Talking as a member of the goalkeeper’s union, you would be delighted for him even though he has cost us. He has inspired other goalkeepers around Kilkenny by his actions yesterday.”
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