Doyle savours Wexford camogie success

JJ Doyle yesterday replicated the achievement of Stellah Sinnott of three years previously, as once again a manager in their first year in charge guided the Wexford team to the All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship title.

Prior to 2007 Wexford had not lifted the O'Duffy Cup since 1975, so yesterday afternoon's 1-12 to 1-10 win over Galway at Croke Park was celebrated with gusto.

"I'd love to see the person who comes to me and says it's easy," joked Doyle, when asked about steering his county to All-Ireland glory after less than 12 months at the helm.

"Galway stopped Cork getting to an All-Ireland final having contested the last eight in-a-row, so we knew that they were going to give us a ferocious battle.

"We also know that they were never going to give up. They went five points behind against Cork (in the semi-final) and came back and drew the game. They went behind in the replay and they came back.

"We knew that they would never give up. You don't get to an All-Ireland final by being quitters and they are not quitters.

"Luckily after that goal went in towards the end, we had a bit of a margin to hold out for victory.

"Luckily today our forwards clicked and got the scores on the board early in play, and we are just very, very delighted."

Doyle said that the win wasn’t 'fly-by-night' and that his side's experience of grinding out results already in the 2010 Championship stood to them on the big day.

"We were in games where we went behind in injury-time and bounced back. We knew and we spoke to the girls all year long that you never ever give up, and never quit," he added.

"It's not over until you are in the dressing room after the match and thankfully they didn't (give up).

"When you are seven points ahead at half-time there is a tendency to sit back, and we were stressing that at half-time not to sit back.

"It's human nature that you sit back, but luckily when we got to the ball in the forwards it stuck with them and it gave our backs a bit of a breather. Our defence was immense out there today.£

Meanwhile, Galway manager Noel Finn made no excuses for his side as he reflected on the Tribeswomen's second All-Ireland final defeat in the space of three years.

"Things didn't go well for us at all in the first half, we just couldn't get our rhythm," he lamented.

"When you come to Croke Park it's a bit daunting and a big crowd, when you are used to playing with small crowds all year.

"It probably got to them a small bit, but having said that you couldn't fault them in the second half. They fought tooth and nail and it was just disappointing that there was only a minute of injury-time.

"I reckon that if there was two or three minutes of injury-time (we could have won).

"We were coming back at them and to be honest they were panicking a bit, but we just couldn't get the goal early enough."