Dolan happy to step aside from match winning kick

“WITH my track record?” smiled Dessie Dolan after he was asked if he fancied taking Garrycastle’s injury-time free.

Such self-deprecation is easy in the wake of what was an excellent performance by Dolan, which substitute Conor Cosgrove ensured wasn’t all in vain when he thumped over the free.

“Ah no, I wouldn’t have minded,” Dolan continued, “but Conor is a left footer and he just ran straight over and popped it over the bar. There was never a question.

“He is the left-footed free taker and he played most of the year on the team. He just didn’t get a chance... but I’d say it would have been a hairy moment for everyone if I was kicking it.”

After claiming he had been fouled on a number of occasions during the second-half, Dolan suggested there was some justice in receiving such a big call from Syl Doyle.

“I was glad Syl gave us that free because I would have had a few choice words with him. I thought he gave a lot of the frees to them and gave them the momentum to get some scores.”

St Brigid’s manager Gerry McEntee seemed to think otherwise.

“I don’t know. Ask Syl Doyle about it,” he said when asked about the decision.

Naturally, Cosgrove begged to differ: “I thought the free was out the field and then he brought it (in).

“I was running up to it and you just think about being a kid, this moment, the last kick of the game. You had to put the occasion out of your mind and just stick it over and thankfully it did.

“I knew the score would be so important but I tried to put that out of my head, because that just gets to you. You are just thinking like if I was above in Garrycastle and sticking it over and thankfully it just did.”

Garrycastle manager Anthony Cunningham, who now has a busy couple of months ahead with his time split between the club and Galway’s hurlers, was certainly grateful.

He also seemed to think Doyle was correct. “Well I thought his [Odhran McCann] hand came across him. I was very close to it because I was here on the sideline so he had no other option but to kick it long.

“It was a big call by the referee but overall I think we edged it.

“Our guys, they really played well in the first half but we couldn’t play like that against St Brigid’s of Roscommon the next day.”

This is his last season with the club and he revealed it would have been the last game for some of his team had they lost.

“This was the last throw of the dice, I can assure you of that, for some of the players,” said the Galway native. “The players are moving on.”

For Cunningham, who managed Roscommon’s St Brigid’s to a Connacht title in 2006, February’s All-Ireland semi-final will be a familiar one of sorts.

As for the Dolan clan, who are represented on both teams, it will be that bit more interesting.

“Christmas will be fun in the Dolan household,” laughed Dessie. “Ah no, Brigid’s Roscommon have shown the way for a long time. We were kind of looking at them in envy that they had won the titles and we hadn’t.

“But like Frankie, Garvan and Darren, they are all super footballers and they have all been playing well for Brigid’s this year.

“It’s a great occasion for the Dolan family. We have Gary, James and Alan Fox is another cousin as well.

“Seven involved, we know them and they know us. It’ll be tough. It’s a big occasion but it’s a game of football at the end of the day.

“There will be no love lost. You get on, you cross the white line to play football. They know that as well. I don’t expect them to be extra friendly to us because they are our cousins.”