No excuses from Quinn as Vincent’s keep focus

Three games in eight days.

Four in 14. Five in 23. Whatever way it’s counted up, St Vincent’s have more than enough excuses to relax the bodies for a couple of days.

However, their minds have already turned to Ger Brennan’s appeal against a red card picked up in the win over St Loman’s and Sunday week’s Leinster club semi-final against Summerhill.

But after that exhaustive eight-day schedule in which they won their last two games with 14 men remaining on the field, rest is a new and cherished commodity in the famous Marino club.

Tomás Quinn was just glad of the games. “We’ve done a huge amount of work all year and I always say training is the hard part. Playing games is fun. This is what we train for. You enjoy playing games, you enjoy being challenged.

“We’d three or four days. It’s not ideal but we’re young men, we’re fit. You just want to play matches and it’s so good to have an opportunity to play in Mullingar after winning Dublin. So we were on a high coming in.

“You could look for excuses. You could turn around and say we’re tired or we don’t have this or we don’t have Ger or Dermo (Connolly). But excuses aren’t going to get you anywhere next week or the week after.

“We wanted to be back training. I think when you weigh it up and look at the bigger picture, (being) tired is a miniscule part of it. That’s the way I approached it anyway.”

Even if Brennan is unsuccessful with his appeal, and they must do without him and Connolly for the semi-final, Quinn knows they are capable of coping minus their inter-county men.

“There was a joke in the dressing room that we’re going back to our best 15 because we play without them all year anyway with Dublin! But, like, your team doesn’t get better without Diarmuid Connolly or Ger Brennan. You’ve just got to adapt.”