Perseverance pays as McHale a winner at last

At the 10th time of asking, St Brigid’s coach Liam McHale finally became an All-Ireland winner, and manager Kevin McStay was only too happy to acknowledge his fellow Mayo man’s perseverance.

For the Roscommon club, yesterday’s triumph could be attributed to their doggedness, coming back from All-Ireland semi-final and final defeats, never mind the eight-point lead Ballymun had built up by the 10th minute.

But McStay also wanted to heap praise on a man who had endured more than enough All-Ireland final heartache.

“You may not know this, but today was Liam’s tenth All-Ireland, his first one to win as a coach and a player. That’s a real sign of somebody. It’s easy for Kerrymen and Corkmen to be coming back here every two or three years because they get an All-Ireland to sustain them.

“He is coming back in here for his 10th one and now he leaves a champion. I think of all the great things that have happened with the team that’s one of the great things I’m going to take from it.

“That he came with us, he didn’t walk away, himself and [substitute] Mark O’Carroll at half-time in the dressing room were just incredible.”

McStay complimented McHale and selector Benny O’Brien for making the switches that swung things in St Brigid’s favour.

“Pace was hurting us — I am sure most of you could see that. Then we made a few very bold changes. Liam and Benny threw one or two scuds into the pile and we went for it.

“We put our centre-back to centre-forward, put Ian [Kilbride] to centre-back and brought on a sub at midfield, got Frankie a bit higher up the field, where we wanted him.”

St Brigid’s victory was extra special in that all of 13 scores bar a Dolan 45 came from play. However, McStay had some strong words about the appointment of Armagh man Padraig Hughes as referee.

“I am going to say this as champions because I would have said nothing if we were beaten. This is not to cast anything in a serious way because the referee was okay, he was fine.

“To appoint a referee from Crossmaglen for an All-Ireland final after we played them in the semi-final with all the referees that were available, put him in a monstrous position.”

Frankie Dolan admitted he was glad All-Ireland finals are never won in the first half — “if they were, we were screwed”. He detected a maturity in the panel in the build-up to the final.

“There were a lot of harsh words said during the week. There were a couple of lads that maybe wanted to be started. Maybe they could have lost the plot a couple of years ago. The bit of experience. They knew it was a team game. They came on and made the difference, the subs that came on really pushed us over the line.”