Tough to take but Boyle will return ‘bigger, stronger and fitter’

Just a few metres up away the Donegal bus driver was putting up a sign on his window ‘Donegal, All-Ireland champions 2012.’

A cheer went up from the few bodies clad in green and gold.

Colm Boyle looked up for a moment, his face showing the signs of battle and his eyes deep and withdrawn.

“It’s tough to take. I suppose Donegal were the favourites coming into it and played well on the day. We made a few mistakes and things went against us but that’s the way it goes.”

A few moments stood out. The early goals. Looking at the scoreboard reading 2-1 to 0-0 and realising they were under massive pressure. And the subsequent save from David Clarke to keep them in the game.

“There are definitely positives to take. We didn’t throw in the towel and we didn’t come to throw in the towel. Clarkie made a great save, I don’t know what the score was at that stage but I think we were two goals down. When he made that save we got a bit of a boost.

“Unfortunately, we never got level or never got ahead to put the pressure on. We were always hanging in. Unfortunately there were one or two small things, a few breaks and things just didn’t happen for us. But that’s the way it goes.”

It was the end of a tough few weeks for him. After a virus cost him a starting spot in the Dublin game, his recovery was slower than expected. During the week he was out of the team, but showed up well enough at training on Tuesday and Thursday to persuade James Horan to give him a chance.

“I felt okay. I got a bit of a doing all right after the Dublin game with the virus. It was just one of those things, but, thankfully, I was able to get back to training last week and get back into the team.”

And now it’s all about next year. Winning Sam is already the priority as they go in search for what will be a quest to end a 62-year famine.

“Well that’s the plan. We can’t stay still. As disappointing as it is we’ll have to look at where it went wrong and see where we can do better maybe for next year.

“Hopefully we’ll come back bigger, stronger and fitter and hopefully we’ll go one step further next year.

“We just have to keep the heads down and keep working. Every one of us has to improve and work that bit harder during the winter and the January, February months. It’s just something we have to do.”