Owens: Red cards harsh

Not one harsh sending-off but two, that was the response of Kilcormac-Killoughey manager Danny Owens to the red cards his midfielders, Killian Leonard and Damien Kilmartin, received in yesterday’s AIB All-Ireland Club SHC final.

“We lost two men and I don’t know what kind of rules he was working off,” Owens said.

“The first yellow card for Damien Kilmartin was unbelievably hard. The second one was fair enough. I thought that the sending-off [Leonard’s] was amazing. It was a harsh red card. You are here on All-Ireland final days and something like that, there wouldn’t even be a second thought about it.

“The same rules should apply everywhere. But I’m not going to take anything away from St Thomas’s and I don’t want to whinge too much about the referee either. Fair play to them, they’re worthy champions.”

Though he was quite exercised at the time, St Thomas’s manager John Burke also felt the straight red for Leonard was harsh.

“It was a bad day and you could see it coming. The two players, he was sliding into him [Darragh Burke] and he just got the slap. He caught him, but it was hard luck. It was a bad day and he couldn’t stop. There was nothing vicious about it.

“It was right in front of me and I heard the slap, but I knew it wasn’t the edge of the hurl and it didn’t to any harm. I was annoyed about it, but it was probably a bit harsh really. It sounded worse than it was.”

Without question those decisions hurt the Offaly champions but in truth, and as so sportingly acknowledged by Owens, there could really be no quibbling with the final result as the Galwegians were clearly the better side on the day.

As on so many other occasions with club champions it was also a family affair, six Burke brothers on the field at the end along with a couple of cousins, patriarch John the manager, who never doubted his club would one day win an All-Ireland.

“Not to boast, but, yes, we did. We have a special bunch of lads, they’re very close and they’re very good hurlers.

“We said if we could just get the right ingredients together we could do it. We were probably lucky that we got one good ingredient and that was Dinny Cahill [renowned Tipperary hurling guru]. He was a big, big help to us, got that little bit extra out of them.”

For Danny Owens, beaten but unbowed, there was huge pride in his Kilcormac-Killoughey side.

“It was a great effort and we are very proud of the lads, put in a massive shift. We can’t fault anyone. There isn’t enough I can say about the lads generally.

“I don’t want to put too much of a dampener on it, we are county champions for the first time, worthy Leinster champions and beat good teams along the way. I am very proud of the lads, it just did not happen on the day and we just have to take our hats off to St Thomas’s.”