Gleeson: no excuses, we had our chances

MICHAEL GLEESON was in the centre of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, eyes fixed on the De La Salle players ascending the steps to where the Munster Club SHC cup was about to be presented.

His Thurles Sars side had haemorrhaged wides for 60 minutes and ended up a point shy of the Waterford champions, and Gleeson gave an unvarnished view of the proceedings.

“There’s no doubt about it, we had our chances and on the day we didn’t take them.

“It was a game of two halves – we scored two points in the first-half and they scored two in the second, but they got more than us in the first-half.

“Fair play to them, they battled very hard and we wish them the very best of luck in the future.”

The game was one of the few GAA fixtures to survive the cold snap, and his De La Salle counterpart pointed out that there were, in effect, two different playing surfaces to deal with in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, but Gleeson didn’t have an issue with the decision to play the game.

“I have no difficulty with that(decision), it was the same for both sides.

“It was great to be playing today. If we’d won we would have been delighted. We have no excuses, we had our chances and the better team won on the day.”

Though Thurles Sars are still searching for a first Munster Club title, it’s been a good season for them.

“It was a tremendous year,” said Gleeson.

“Back to back county finals, but nevertheless we’d love to have ended the year on a winning note. That wasn’t to be – so be it.”

The De La Salle captain was about to take the microphone, when Gleeson was asked to ponder the scoreline, a tally from a bad NFL game.

“You can’t wind the clock back,” he said simply. “It was just one of those days.”

Then the victory speech began.