Marist camp reflects on what might have been ...

By Kieran Galvin

Marist College co-manager Con O’Meara couldn’t disguise his deep sense of disappointment after the Athlone side’s narrow defeat in the Leinster Schools SF ‘A’ final at Croke Park last Saturday.

“When we look back on it, I’d say some of the shooting options we took were crazy. You talk about working on getting it to the ‘D’ and finding the guy coming off your shoulder for a score. Croke Park, the excitement of it all, the buzz of it all - some of the shooting was erratic, but listen the guys gave absolutely everything they had,” O’Meara reflected.

“It’s not a nice dressing room in there as you can imagine. Fellas working hard from September, 7.30 starts in the morning, and giving it everything. Then you go out against a good side, a well organised side, strong favourites for the whole lot, give it your all and then it just doesn’t happen,” he continued.

“We didn’t get the rub of the green, I thought. I’d be biased, but I thought the second last free, when there was a point in it .. he (Mark Curley) went in for a 50-50 ball and how was that a free-in? At that stage I thought we'd get a draw. We had made a couple of switches. Mark Curley had gone to midfield and had started catching a couple of balls. Eamon Cunnane had come on and went to wing-back and started giving us some go forward ball.

“We had a couple of chances, again some rushed shots. We were knocking on the door and really let the air fully out of the tyres.”

“We never settled in the second half on the scoring front. Conor Marlowe was on his game, there wasn’t enough decent ball going in there. But I suppose that’s testimony to Coláiste Eoin. They worked so hard around the middle. Some of their guys looked like rugby centres; I don’t think it was just their jerseys! I thought we had to work very hard (to get frees) ... but listen, that’s the old cliche, giving out about refs.

“We came with a game-plan and we thought it would work. We knew that we had a team that was capable of winning a Leinster title and we just ran into a team that got the rub of the green on the night. I think the teams were evenly matched.”

Con paid tribute to Paul Kelly for the high fitness levels the Marist players have attained during the campaign.

“That’s down to Paul Kelly, a Castledaly man, co-manager with myself, and the training that the boys did was phenomenal. There’s inter-county teams that wouldn’t do that. The boys were in great shape and you could see that. The boys who came on added fire to it, but we just lacked that bit of composure in front of goal,” said O’Meara, who felt the team needed to make better use of Conor Marlowe’s ball-winning ability.

“We never got that settling run of a brace of scores in the second half. We never got a couple of scores to settle us down. They didn’t come ... and unfortunately it just got away from us in the end.”

Overall, Con said he was very proud of the players, who were delighted with them opportunity to play in Croke Park.

“We got the chance of playing in Croke Park. We had to discuss it, because the most important thing for us was to win the game, but you couldn’t deny the guys a chance to play there and it will stand to them. Some guys will look back fondly on it. There were some great performances and things that stand out in my mind - Mark Curley at centre-back, a ball went in there and he caught it; I don’t know what height he was in the air! There are some great memories for those guys.

“It’s gut wrenching for us to be so close, to be within touching distance and to just fall short.' 

Asked about how many players will be involved next year, he said: “A good few of the guys are gone, but we only had four or five of the guys from last year that lost the semi-final unluckily against Edenderry. The guys have improved so much. Even if you go the whole way back to number 36 - those guys have improved so much. We were looking at cutting the panel, and we are so glad we didn’t. Those guys have given so much and close to the end, there was no drop in intensity with them.”

“They are super lads, a super bunch and they are heartbroken, but listen you always have to be optimistic and you always have to drive on. They’ll all come out of it better footballers,” added Con.

*See this week's Westmeath Independent for a full report and pictures from last Saturday's Leinster final.